BY: Peter Stanners
Source: cphpost.dk
Despite its rising popularity, the Nørrebro street has been the setting of numerous gang related shootings...
Drug dealers have finally started to lose their grip on the trendy street Jægersborggade in the Nørrebro district.
Jægersborggade has a reputation as being Copenhagen’s second largest market for cannabis after Christiania, and drug dealers visibly operate there around the clock.
But after a concerted effort by police this summer, the dealers have disappeared and residents have reclaimed the benches and tables halfway down the street, which the dealers used as a base for their operations.
“We have been placing pressure on [the drug dealers] since the start of the summer,” Mikkel K. Brogaard, of the Copenhagen Police told Berlingske newspaper.
“We are now easing off up but if we see the dealers return we will continue to place pressure on them. It’s about time the residents got the street back.”
The drug trade on Jægersborggade is controlled by the Hells Angels and their affiliates in the AK81 gang, which have been the target of numerous shootings and attacks as part of Nørrebro's gang war between the immigrant community based on Blågårds Plads and the bikers.
With the opening of dozens of niche and specialty stores in the past decade, Jægersborggade is considered a trendy and attractive area of Nørrebro though its rise in popularity was in spite of the presence of the drug dealers.
According to Astrid Starck, a board member of one of the street’s main housing associations, AB Jæger, the presence of drug dealers over they years has harmed the street’s image.
“Some residents have felt unsafe and threatened by the open drug dealing,” Starck told Berlingske. “Some people even moved from the street because of it – they didn’t feel safe bringing up small children in that environment.”
Starck added that in the twelve years she had lived on the street, she could not remember one where hash was not being sold. That was until the start of this summer.
“We have to get used to a completely new situation. Jægersborggade without drug dealers – it’s crazy.”
According to Berlingske, the police will not say exactly what methods they have used to get rid of the drug dealers, though they have been increasing patrols in the area.
Last year Mayor Frank Jensen, while on a tour with press on the street, said that something needed to be done about the brazen hash trade on the street.