Where I am in California there are six Safeways (owned by Albertsons who is merging Kroger) in a two mile square. At least here, we aren’t short of grocery stores, and these aren’t being shuttered anyway, they’re being sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers . The issue is this massive monopoly, not really being mitigated by the anti trust regulators making them give up a tiny percentage of their kingdom in order to vastly increase their strangle hold on US grocery stores and ability to artificially inflate food prices.
Again, these places aren’t being closed. They are being sold to a different grocery giant. The issue at hand is monopoly and price fixing, not fewer grocery stores.
Did you read the article you posted about Santa Rosa? That law was pushed into place so one guy could open a Smart & Final. There was already a Lola’s (independently owned grocery store), Target with grocery section and a Costco there. How is that a food desert?
He also didn’t like that the law had the appearance of being written specifically to help one property owner get a new tenant. Commercial real estate broker Tom Laugero, who was working to get Smart & Final into the Santa Rosa Town Center space, petitioned the council to pass the law. […] “We corrupted our process,” Wysocky said. “We took 12-year-old statistics from the federal government and molded our process just to help this one tenant out. And that’s not OK.”
Where I am in California there are six Safeways (owned by Albertsons who is merging Kroger) in a two mile square. At least here, we aren’t short of grocery stores, and these aren’t being shuttered anyway, they’re being sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers . The issue is this massive monopoly, not really being mitigated by the anti trust regulators making them give up a tiny percentage of their kingdom in order to vastly increase their strangle hold on US grocery stores and ability to artificially inflate food prices.
Bay area: https://abc7news.com/food-desert-bay-area-deserts-pantry-near-me-alameda-bank/11254529/
Los Angeles: https://povertyusa.org/stories/homelessness-food-deserts-los-angeles
Sacramento: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0227b337c8364bedbd56547cbf9ef5a5
San Diego: https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sdc/lueg/food-system-initiative/sdc-food-deserts.pdf
San Bernardino and Riverside counties: https://www.dailybulletin.com/2022/10/14/access-to-food-a-problem-throughout-riverside-san-bernardino-counties/
But hey, they tried and failed to do something about it in Sonoma County about 10 years ago- https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/santa-rosas-food-desert-law-rescinded-after-one-store-qualifies/
Again, these places aren’t being closed. They are being sold to a different grocery giant. The issue at hand is monopoly and price fixing, not fewer grocery stores.
Did you read the article you posted about Santa Rosa? That law was pushed into place so one guy could open a Smart & Final. There was already a Lola’s (independently owned grocery store), Target with grocery section and a Costco there. How is that a food desert?
The FTC has already sued to block this, what more is there?