02 Jul Ralphs Abandons South L.A.? Lack of Healthy Grocery Options Concerns Residents
By Toni Ann Johnson
On June 13, more than one hundred South Los Angeles residents gathered in front of Ralphs on Western Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard to voice their discontent over the store’s then-impending closure and the company’s record of disrespect and broken promises in the area.
The Ralphs supermarket on Western Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard closed its doors permanently June 21, further decreasing the surrounding community’s access to healthy food. This is the second Ralphs in South Los Angeles to shut down in the past several months.
Many residents, including the more than one hundred people who came to the store June 13 to protest its closure, believe the exit is indicative of Ralphs’ ongoing disregard for the community. When Ralphs has shut stores in other areas, residents were informed well in advance, as was the case last year at a Ralphs in Long Beach.
But Dorothy Redmond, who lives near Western and King, said she learned of the market’s closure only when she overheard workers discussing it there June 7. “We just found out ourselves this morning,” she said a surprised cashier told her.
Too Few Options
Employees have been reassigned to other stores, but shoppers who depended on the Ralphs aren’t as fortunate. Like in many urban working-class communities across the country, South L.A. has only a limited number of outlets offering fresh, healthy food.
According to a 2010 report by research group PolicyLink, low-income neighborhoods have half as many supermarkets as wealthy ones and only 8% of African Americans live in a census tract with a supermarket compared with 31% of whites. In many communities, the lack of access to nutritious food contributes to serious public health problems such as diabetes and obesity.
Many residents affected by the store’s closure are elderly and, like Redmond’s 78-year-old mother, don’t drive. “My mom will be dependent on her kids to pick her up and take her shopping now,” Redmond said. The closest grocery store, Food 4 Less, is more than a mile away. “That’s too far for my mother to walk,” she noted.
The closure is also a hardship for resident Pam Walls. She doesn’t have a car, and because of her carpal tunnel syndrome, it’s difficult for her to carry groceries more than a few blocks.
Longtime resident Issac White was saddened to see the store close. “I liked being able to run in and grab things when I needed them,” he said. “That convenience is gone.”
Rotten Ralphs
Other neighbors were ambivalent about the shutdown. “I stopped going in there,” Pam Licavoli said, “because it was nasty and the selection was poor. But it’s not fair for the people who don’t have a choice.”
Redmond said she used to buy only last minute items at the Ralphs, preferring to drive elsewhere to what she considered better stores. “I’d pretty much given up on that Ralphs,” she explained. “Some sections were dirty, and it didn’t offer a lot of the things my family likes that Ralphs in other areas have.”
Social Compact Inc., which studies economic data on underserved communities, estimates that South L.A. residents spend $115 million annually shopping outside of their communities due to substandard stores – highlighting a demand for quality grocery outlets.
In Redmond’s view, Ralphs had made no improvements to the Western and King store since taking it over in the ’90s. “It looked the same as it did before Ralphs bought it. Rather than close, I wish they had improved the store and improved the quality of what they offered,” she said.
Unlike the standard Ralphs layout, the fresh produce section wasn’t prominent or visible from the entrance. “It was very small,” Redmond said. “And there was almost no organic produce, only some spinach and other greens.”
She had also seen expired meat and rotten produce in the store. “We bought oranges one time, brought them home, peeled them and they were black inside. Same thing happened with some red peppers, and I had to return them.”
No one from Ralphs met with the community ahead of the closure to offer a reason. However, a security guard for the store’s parking lot told several residents, including Redmond, that it was closing because of a loss of revenue due to theft. Kroger, the company that owns Ralphs and Food 4 Less, reported more than $90 billion in revenue in 2012.
Research does not show that grocery stores in low-income areas lose more revenue from theft than do those in other communities, according to PolicyLink. And residents are skeptical that theft motivated Ralphs’ decision to leave.
“If that’s the reason, then why isn’t Food 4 Less closing?” White said. “It’s happening at Ralphs and not Food 4 Less?”
Licavoli believes that Ralphs simply didn’t want to be in this neighborhood. “If theft was the issue, why didn’t they address it?” she asked. “They didn’t try to make it better. There was never enough concern about the store and that’s why it failed. They let it fail, because they don’t want to be here.”
In 1995, Ralphs was among a group of retailers that committed to building as many as thirty-two new stores in South L.A. after the 1992 civil unrest, according to advocacy group Community Health Councils. By 2008, the area had only five additional shops after several closed.
Toni Ann Johnson is an award-winning screenwriter, author and activist in South L.A.
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