Tin Cup's to stay in St. Paul after sheriff-elect promises substation

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) - The owner of Tin Cup’s was planning for her business to leave the City of St. Paul, but now thanks to the new Ramsey County Sheriff, she's had a change of heart.

Tin Cup’s has been an institution along Rice Street since the mid-1940s and now it looks like the bar and family restaurant will be staying put in the city's north end.

"It’s a relief,” said Tin Cup’s owner Gidget Bailey. “There were a lot of tears when we thought we were leaving."

Last week, Bailey said Tin Cup's would be moving to Vadnais Heights because of high crime in the area. A spike in gun violence over the summer prompted several employees to apply for permits to carry. But Bailey says a shooting in the restaurant's parking lot that sent a bullet flying past her son's head early Friday morning was the final straw.

"I don't want to lose a customer, an employee,” said Bailey. “All I kept thinking was I could have lost my son. There is no money in the world. You cannot put a price on a human life."

But a couple of days before Tuesday's election, then-candidate for Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher asked Bailey if she would reconsider moving if he was elected and put a sheriff's substation in Tin Cup's basement. Now that Fletcher has won his old job back, he is ready to make the substation a reality.

"You just can't lose Gidget Bailey and the Tin Cup's,” said Fletcher. “It’s part of the heart and soul here. There's been an amazing response from the people in this area to make sure we try and keep it."

Bailey says the move is off the table and she won't charge the sheriff's department any rent. She just hopes the substation deters enough crime to keep her business where it is for another seven decades.

"We've tried everything else,” she said. “It hasn't worked. We have to try this. We have to try this."

Sheriff-elect Fletcher says he's still working out the details of when the substation will move in, but he hopes to have it up and running by the end of January.