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Abandoned stores leave grocery graveyards in Denver area

09.05.10

Gaining push, activists say. But to really succeed, to really get fresh, trim food into nutrition-neglected neighborhoods labeled victuals deserts, will take leadership, creativity, a hefty helping of smaller-gradation, smaller-volume stores, and an economic incentive or two.

The Colorado Healthfulness Foundation is trying to craft incentives that could help jot or tittle supermarket growth, said Jill Litt, an buddy professor of environmental health at the University of Colorado's Discipline of Public Health.

Litt, who has worked with the foundation on commons-access issues, said they are "advocating for policy changes that would shift some of the barriers that prevent stores from locating in low-income areas."

Those barriers catalogue concerns about store security, finding a reliable workforce — and span.

"A lot of grocery retailers are looking at the demographics of a population, and income is one of those," said Monica Buhlig of Kaiser Permanente.

In inner cities, which were built before anyone dreamed of a supermarket as big as a burgh block, there just isn't enough available land.

King Soopers, the extent's dominant food-store chain, does not have a solitary store within Denver city limits north that the only options we have are potato chips and beer."

Empty smidgen after fire

Lopez's district also is home to the city's highest concentration of unemployment, and one of the biggest pockets of home ground foreclosures, according to state statistics.

He knows those people and knows many don't have secure transportation to get them to grocery stores even a few miles away.

Not very long ago, Lopez's territory was home to a thriving little market, the kind everyone who grew up in the Barnum neighborhood shopped at or had a backer who worked at.

But the story of the Knox Court Supermarket reads a lot like the narration of the neighborhood itself.

The store was the quintessential mom-and-pop shop, run by a string of Moms and Pops, each new proprietress reflecting the neighborhood's changing face.

Then in 2008 a fire there closed the accumulate, and it hasn't opened since.

Late last month, Knox Court got yet another P — a Los Angeles bank.

That's sad, Lopez said. But it's also an chance.

Lopez hopes the bank will be interested in selling to someone who'll rebuild and reopen.

He isn't dreaming of a Brobdingnagian store as big as a village. His vision is for what he calls a "junior-sized grocery hoard," maybe an Azteca. "Just so they sell a lot of fresh bring forward and fresh food," he said.

Or, maybe a Sav-A-Lot.

"We look for those areas where there are underserved neighborhoods," said Mike Cioppa, Sav-A-Lot's licensing and cataloguing manager for Colorado.

And Sav-A-Lot is one of the few organizations that prize those abandoned, empty stores.

"We've rehabbed almost all our buildings, which were at one habits or another other supermarkets," said John Leevers, who owns seven of Colorado's nine Sav-A-Lots, including five in metro Denver.

While a classic King Soopers or Safeway can be 65,000 square feet, and a Wal-Mart Supercenter twice that vastness, Sav-A-Lot stores are more like 15,000 square feet.

That slimmed-down help means Sav-A-Lot can squeeze into inner-city neighborhoods where inane land is scarce.

Of course, that also means less merchandise.

"We have a restrictive assortment," Cioppa said. "Where Kroger or Safeway might have 20,000 to 30,000 items, we have about 2,000."

That's easier to do than it sounds, he said. "Take ketchup. Royal Soopers may have five brands of ketchup in five sizes for each brand. We may have one stamp, one 24-ounce bottle of ketchup."

Cioppa is well cognizant of the security concerns that scare some grocers away from less-affluent neighborhoods.

Source: Denver Post

SEIU Chief Henry Vows $4 Million to Organize Bank, Grocery Jobs

08.05.10

By Holly Rosenkrantz

May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Mary Kay Henry, elected today as president of the Mending Employees International Union, pledged to spend $4 million organizing employees in businesses such as banks and supermarkets.

“Working people are fa hardships that we haven’t seen in generations,” Henry said on a symposium call with reporters after the executive board picked her to replace Andy Obdurate.

Henry said she has “a fire in her belly” for fighting operation interference in labor organizing efforts. Henry said she will war such efforts by “creating complaints” with the Nationalistic Labor Relations Board.

Henry, 52, takes over the 2.2-million-associate union from Stern, who cultivated close ties to President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress during 14 years as president. Henry said she met Obama two years ago at a Representative presidential candidates’ forum and is seeking to organize a meeting with White House officials “but has no suggestion when that will occur.”

The $4 million fund will be hardened to organize industries that have traditionally not had employee representation, Henry said. She cited banks, grocery stores, biotechnology companies and untrammelled contractors as prospects, without mentioning specific firms. The harmoniousness said it spends about $250 million annually to daily help local officials on organizing.

Private-sector trust membership in the U.S. fell to a record low of 7.2 percent of the workforce last year, while Lugubrious helped the SEIU to become the nation’s biggest labor federation.

The Washington-based union also will spend $4 million to choose union-friendly candidates in state governor’s offices and legislatures in November, Henry said.

California Nurses

Henry was a marriage organizer among California nurses before taking over the SEIU. A bandleader of the union’s health-care division, she pledged to renew rifts that grew as Stern focused on gaining access to politicians including Obama.

Adamant, 59, visited the White House 22 times in 2009 during the first six months of Obama’s presidency, making him the most frequent fa visitor.

The new union president today committed to “restoring our relationship with the American labor trend” after Stern led seven unions out of the AFL-CIO in 2005 and created the measure up to federation Change to Win. Henry said SEIU remains committed to Mutate to Win, and also wants to be a “full partner” in the U.S. labor moving parts.

Henry was an executive vice president of SEIU based in Washington. She grew up in the Detroit suburbs and has been an SEIU organizer since 1979. A originator of the union’s gay-and- lesbian caucus, she led organizing drives for constitution-care workers at Tenet Healthcare Corp. and Beverly Enterprises Inc.

Burger’s Withdrawal

Henry cinched the SEIU presidential contest more than a week ago when Stern’s chosen successor, Anna Burger, withdrew her candidacy. Several consortium leaders endorsed Henry after she promised to heal rifts in the fusion.

The SEIU spent $85 million to help choose Democrats to the White House and Congress in 2008. Henry pledged to contend the union’s political clout in campaigns for the November elections even as she placed increased significance on grassroots organizing.

--Editors: Steve Geimann, Ann Hughey

To junction the reporter on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net.

To get in touch with the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at lliebert@bloomberg.net.

Source: BusinessWeek