Another downtown St. John’s business owner is at her wit’s end after her shop was again targeted by graffiti vandals this week.

MJ Couch has operated Melanie Jacqueline designs at several locations in the area for the past 14 years.

But she says her downtown days may be numbered after someone senselessly tagged her sign and defaced the facade of her business on Water Street West this week.

The cleanup will be costly enough. But Couch says that’s just the tip of the iceberg, admitting she no longer feels safe at her shop given the incidents right outside her door, which she now keeps locked at all times.

“I hear people out on the corner screaming and fighting. Just last week one guy was actually fighting with himself, or a make-believe person he was with, very strung out, losing it, he picked a fight with a kid walking by,” she said. “It actually shook me and I thought, ‘I’m in here locked in and I know I’m safe,’ but it’s so unsettling, so unsettling what is happening down here.”

Other downtown business owners, most recently Always in Vogue, have also been victimized, with many attributing the rise in crime to rampant addictions and mental illness.

Couch also decried what she called the justice system’s “catch and release” program, “with no consequences” for repeat offenders.