When Kroger shuttered its Lake City Fred Meyer this month, the neighborhood became a food desert without a full-service grocery store. Five other Kroger-owned stores have recently closed in Redmond, Everett, Kent, Tacoma and Mill Creek. Paired with the steady death of Seattle stores over the last few years, the closures sparked worry among government officials, unions and community members alike, that these food deserts could spread.
On Tuesday, the Seattle City Council unanimously approved an ordinance that declares a public health emergency, temporarily banning grocery and pharmacy chains from enforcing anti-competition covenants that could keep people from accessing fresh food. These “negative use restrictions” allow companies to block their rivals from moving onto their former lots. The ordinance will expire in one year, unless council extends it or terminates it early.
This legislation, proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell on October 1, came after challenger Katie Wilson’s campaign pitch in partnership with UFCW 3000 to explore publicly funded grocery stores—government-run stores that provide greater food accessibility. Harrell’s legislation moved through at breakneck speed, less than one week before Election Day. Wilson is leading the race by four points, according to polling conducted by The Stranger and DHM Research.
Harrell’s legislation might sound impressive, appealing to progressives’ desires to stick it to big corporations. But it’s not as radical as it could be. In fact, the newly established law isn’t retroactive to existing restrictive covenants, meaning it will only ban any prospective agreements. Breaking this law may come with a steep $1,500 a day fine, but it won’t have much immediate effect.
Kroger, which owns Fred Meyer and QFC, said it closed stores due to increased retail theft—despite police data showing that it’s in decline—or underperformance.
Anti-competition covenants allow a chain—Kroger, in this instance—to keep some of their customers after they close a location by forcing them to travel to the next closest store within their brand.
“What bothers us, I think, as a city, is to weigh anti-competition versus people’s need for food and a pharmacy,” said District 5 Councilmember Debora Juarez, who represents Lake City. “We believe that is unacceptable and unconscionable.”
Juarez said that in addition to losing Fred Meyer and its pharmacy, the neighborhood’s Walgreens and Bartell Drugs have closed.The last pharmacy in Lake City is run by the Seattle Indian Health Board at their clinic on 33rd Avenue. The next closest is Safeway in Pinehurst, 1.3 miles away from the former Fred Meyer. That’s only a five minute drive, but it’s about 15 minutes by transit or a 27-minute walk.
“I’m sure across the city there are other grocery stores that have these restrictive noncompetitive covenants,” Juarez said. “Hopefully, council colleagues, we can start looking at these covenants…because we can’t find ourselves in this city, where we have food deserts in a city that has so much abundance of wealth and food.”
When grocery stores close, the community suffers. People might have trouble finding another store close by, or finding reliable transit to get there. Food pantries that partner with grocery stores lose food that would otherwise be thrown away. In Lake City, North Helpline, a homelessness prevention and food access nonprofit, stocked its shelves with food from Fred Meyer.
Councilmembers mentioned the looming threat of SNAP running out this Saturday, courtesy of the ongoing government shutdown. But this legislation won’t directly address that, especially with the benefits cut-off literally days away.
“All of this, it’s all part of this food desert and the need to provide food for our constituents,” said Councilmember Maritza Rivera. “Food insecurity is real, and it’s hitting a lot of folks in the various districts that we represent.”
After the meeting, Mayor Bruce Harrell issued a statement, applauding council for their action and reminding the public that he proposed this legislation to council.
“Every neighborhood deserves convenient access to fresh, affordable, nutritious food and essential medicine. Period,” he said.
Retail theft is out of control. You never used to have to press a button just to get ice cream when crime wasn’t so bad.
“Katie Wilson’s campaign pitch in partnership with UFCW 3000 to explore publicly funded grocery stores”
Ah yes, government run stores. I’m old enough to remember when we had government run liquor stores, which were the status quo here until 2012. The Archie McPhee in Wallingford used to be one. They were so (un)successful that when given the chance, a decisive majority (~60%) voted to get rid of them and let private stores take over, despite extra taxes being added on so the state didn’t lose money. No surprise though that Wilson is resurrecting a failed idea from the past and her blissfully ignorant young supporters (and UFCW 3000, looking to suckle on the city’s teat) cheer it on like its new and amazing.
Public groceries is a great idea. Everyone deserves to be fed, regardless of how it affects corporations’ profit margins. The liquor store anecdote seems a false equivalence, as nobody but victims of severe addiction to the stuff need it to survive, but everyone needs food. It could only fail if it failed to adequately feed people,which should be the sole priority.
@3 That’s a great sentiment but it doesn’t change the economics of running a store. If the location was profitable Kroger would have continued to operate there. If the city chooses to try and reopen a store at that location it would have to operate at a loss which means less selection / lower quality and asking taxpayers to support it. Given the city’s current financial condition I don’t see how Wilson will be able to make that work. Should be interesting to watch her try though.
I think making sure everyone is fed is a good investment on its face, so return on investment in a capital sense wouldn’t be a priority for me as a taxpayer. Same way I feel about funding the light rail expansion, the good is inherent in the service provided, not in its ability to make money directly. A city where everyone is fed probably doesn’t have near as many people stealing food and giving corpos cause to deny the whole neighborhood easy (if you can afford it) access to it.
@5 Noble intentions but the reality is the city has a fixed budget with significant headwinds. You also realize they would sell at market price so people who can’t afford food are not helped by this at all. This is more about convenience than food security. As has been noted in other threads there is literally a grocery across the street from the Fred Meyer and a Safeway a 15 min walk away. Governance is about making decisions that provide the best for everyone with the limited resources available and this project would have a very limited impact for a significant cost. If Katie pursues this it will be an example of poor governance and will come back to bite her later on.
“despite police data showing that it’s in decline”
That’s what happens when nobody calls the police to report crimes because it’s useless because either the cops don’t come, or take hours to come, or the prosecutors don’t prosecute, or the libprog judge lets the perp off, for years and years, moron.
@3 You can easily feed people by just giving them city financed EBT cards or something like that, if feeding them is the goal. But there is no reason for the city to get in the difficult business of running grocery stores, which would certainly result in an expensive poorly run debacle. You don’t just snap your fingers and conjure out of thin air a complex and efficient operation like a modern grocery store.
It also seems weird to talk about Lake City as a “food desert” as there are Safeway and QFC stores on 15th, one on 125th and one on 145th (as well as the dubious “Grocery Outlet” store in the old Lake City QFC location). Both are just over a mile from the now closed Fred Meyer, which doesn’t seem like an egregious distance.
Its worthwhile to figure out what went wrong at the Lake City Fred Meyer. The city opened a large public housing complex 2 blocks south of the store, and the unfortunate reality is that might have led to increased thefts. Maybe the city could have prevented the whole drama by just posting a cop in the store to deter the would be shoplifters. Certainly that would be a simpler and cheaper option than having the city dive into a (for them) totally new industry.
The problem is NOT restrictive covenants, it is Amazon and DoorDash! People have continued and even increased their online shopping since the pandemic, so many of these stores just don’t have the customers they once had. Bruce is obviously not going to stand up to Amazon (his REAL employer) to get them to support some alternative to keep shopping in Seattle walkable in many neighborhoods. When the private sector is too disruptive like in the case of Amazon, the government needs to step in to support its vision for the city. Government-run stores might be a solution as proposed by Katie, or even city owned property in strategic neighborhood locations that could then be leased at a discount to private store owners who are in line with the city’s vision. Can’t let Amazon walk all over the city like Bruce has been letting them do – need a strong and independent mayor capable of standing up to greed and the trillionaire companies who only care about chasing more money.
A few obvious questions about Wilson’s public grocery store “plan,” which is in fact little more than a hastily-sketched note scrawled on a cocktail napkin.
-Where are these food wholesalers lining up to sell their product at a loss?
-Where will these public stores be sited? Who owns the land?
-What wages will they pay employees?
-What will happen to existing, for-profit grocery stores when they are forced to compete with subsidized public stores that sell their products at a loss?
-What’s their policy on shoplifting?
“Sure we take a loss on every gallon of milk sold, but we’re hoping up to make up our losses in volume!”
Per an insider the Lake City Fred Meyer hadn’t been profitable since before the pandemic – lost between $5-$10 million the prior 12 months they were open. Those are awful numbers – not sure how a city run store would fare any better.
As for the pharmacy closures, that was a combination of poor corporate management (see Bartells merger with RiteAid, idiotic levels of debt by RiteAid, etc.) and poor business conditions in that lake city core. Even with the population growth they weren’t pulling in customers (part of that being no one really wants to shop in Bartertown). I really hope our elected officials understand this reality.
@4 “If the location was profitable Kroger would have continued to operate there.” Businesses close profitable locations or shut down profitable products all the time.
I would like to see the documentation of theft. Someone who worked there told me that they were losing $1M a year 10 or so years ago. That’s $20,000/week or $3,000/day, on average. That seems unbelievable and makes me think the calls were coming from inside the house. Who is getting that much stuff out the door each and every day? They have had armed guards checking receipts for years…how much were they paying for that and how much good was it?
If, per @11, they were losing $5-10M a year, how were they doing before? People still shopped before, during and after the pandemic. That’s between $400,000 and $800,000 a month in losses. I don’t think I believe any of that. If it was that bad, they should have closed 3 years ago or made some radical changes to cut their losses. I saw nothing like that.
@12 soooo they just closed it because they don’t like making money and wanted to thumb their nose at Seattle? Does that really make sense?