Juut Salon Spa, located in Uptown Minneapolis, recently shut down due to increasing crime and violence in the area.
Owner David Wagner announced on his Facebook page Sunday that the Minneapolis hair salon and spa would be closing because the neighborhood has become too dangerous to continue allowing employees and clients to visit.
“We decided to close due to the continued escalation of crime and violence in our neighborhood. I would be heartbroken if any of our team or clients got hurt,” Wagner shared in a Facebook post.
Wagner said the salon would be closing after 35 years of being in business. Located at West Lake Street and Hennepin Avenue, the salon had been running since 1986.
“It has become more and more evident that Uptown continues to struggle with store closings, social unrest, crime, and street closures,” reads a statement from the salon.
This is Juut’s second salon to close in the past year. Prior to the Uptown location closing, a downtown Minneapolis location also closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the downtown location closed, many employees relocated to the salon’s Uptown location. However, after the shooting of Winston Smith on June 3, the salon’s safety was compromised.
Following the death of George Floyd in 2020, and then Daunte Wright and Smith in 2021, Minneapolis’s Uptown neighborhood has now become a center of protest against police violence.
Just hours after Wagner announced Juut Salon’s closure on Sunday, another killing took place. Sunday evening, a man drove an SUV through a crowd of protesters in Uptown, killing one woman and injuring three others.
Katie Larsen
Katie Larsen is a cartoonist and writer for Alpha News.
