VLC will not close

[SFBay]

Hello,

I am unable to close VLC media player. It continues to run in the background, however it will not play any videos, and will not even "open" anymore for me to see the application on the screen. It will not force quit. When I try to delete/uninstall it, I get an error message that I cannot because it is open. I am unable to change my VLC preferences since I cannot get into the application, and do not know how to generate any report logs for the same reason. I have used VLC for over a year and never had this problem. My Mac runs OS 10.13.16. The VLC version is 3.0.7.1.

Can anyone please advise how I can fix this issue?

Thanks,
Matthew