Just last year, Speedy Food in St. Paul’s North End was nothing but a corner grocery store: bread, milk and a full bank of freezers stood along the back wall, packed with perishables.

Now those freezers have been torn out, and a good third of the floor space cut away to make room for an adjacent tobacco store, which will be opening soon.

“It’s a part of what pays the bills, pays staff,” said owner Joe Zerka, who recently bought the business intending to put in a smoke shop. “(Tobacco products are) a reason why people come into the store. It’s not the sole piece that keeps us going. They get their cigarettes and gas and a drink and a snack.”

To be considered a smoke shop, 90 percent of sales — made in a floor space that was once part of a “food stop” in a dense, low-income residential area — now must come from tobacco products, according to city statute.

Less than a mile away, along Maryland Avenue, the same thing happened. A full half of the Maryland Supermarket is now a walled-off smoke shop called Maryland Tobacco.

A half-mile from that sits the Rice Street Market — housed within a Minnoco gas station. And in a freshly walled-off space beside it, under the same owner, sits Rice Street Tobacco.

It seemed like the simplest of business decisions.

“Seventy-five, eighty percent of our customers use menthol,” said the shop’s manager, Hamed Akli.

SMOKE SHOPS SPROUTING UP

Saturation doesn’t seem to be a factor: If people don’t want to buy their smokes at any of those three corners, they can always drive a short mile to the north, where an even bigger smoke shop sits at the corner of Larpenteur Avenue and Rice Street. Actually, two smoke shops.

Since St. Paul passed an ordinance in 2017 mandating that menthol and flavored tobacco products only be sold in adults-only tobacco shops, those shops have sprouted at an accelerated rate in certain areas of the city — the poorest areas, in particular. And in some cases, they’re slicing out space dedicated to groceries to do it.

Popular Articles ‘It’s devastating’: Harassment of COVID public health workers is widespread and ‘unprecedented,’ officials say.

Soucheray: A peaceful transfer of power? We’ll get there, if that’s the vote. Or else.

MN woman facing murder charges for ignoring daughter’s medical alarms

Charges: 17-year-old shot 15-year-old in face during marijuana deal in St. Paul

St. Paul district to wait on reopening schools, citing lack of staff The locations are perhaps unsurprising, given that the ordinance’s crafters themselves noted that marketing of menthol cigarettes specifically targets African-Americans.

St. Paul City Council member Jane Prince, who authored the 2017 ordinance, said back then that she would have no hesitation to propose even tougher restrictions in the future.

“Your business future is tied to the tobacco industry at your own peril,” Prince said.

‘REALLY BUSY’

But several business owners and managers told the Pioneer Press they’re unwilling to risk the opposite.

The shop separation at Rice Street Tobacco cost that owner about $80,000. But the long-time manager of the space, Sam Hunt, said he expects the owner will break even again in two or three years.

“We’re really busy. Really busy,” said Akli next door, talking between customers.

Menthol opponents have said the tobacco industry targeted African-Americans for years through menthol ads and free samples. During the years-old debate, council members mimicked those concerns.

And while that may be so, Hunt said he didn’t notice any demographic difference in menthol sales in the ethnically diverse North End. If it once was targeting African-Americans, it seems to have caught on to the entire community now.

“It’s geographic — it’s the neighborhood,” he said. “White, black, Asian — it’s a social thing here; we’ve had our share of every single human buy smoking menthol. Especially the younger generation.”

To that end, last month St. Paul voted to ban sales of cigarettes to anyone younger than 21.

Of the 20 tobacco shop licenses granted in St. Paul this year, 10 were in East Side neighborhoods, the huge majority in Payne-Phalen; another four were in the North End and one was in Frogtown, according to data supplied by the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections.

The remaining five were on the West Side and in western St. Anthony Park and the Summit-University neighborhood.

FOOD DESERTS

Additionally, those tobacco shop licenses are coming at a faster clip. The 20 awarded this year represent nearly half of the 42 active licenses across the city.

According to food-access research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, many of the census tracts in the North End and East Side are both “low income” and have “low access” to healthy food.

“A significant portion of our population lives in urban neighborhoods or rural areas that lack easy access to fresh, healthy and affordable food, often referred to as ‘food deserts,’ ” said Second Harvest Heartland chief executive Allison O’Toole. “These families often end up buying their food from convenience stores and fast-food chains, which are typically full of unhealthy, processed food.”

In November 2017, the St. Paul City Council voted 6-1 to limit sales of menthol tobacco products to adults-only tobacco shops and liquor stores.

The same restrictions — which went into effect by the end of 2018 — apply to mint, wintergreen and fruit-flavored tobacco products.

In July, the city issued a cap on the total number of tobacco licenses they would issue.