What would Clark Howard’s response to Angelica Sanabria’s piece be?
what is her take on it? Either way, limiting the supply will cause the demand to go up, which increases the prices. Sounds like market manipulation to me.
Voters in California don’t care about prices. They can steal all they need as long as it’s less than $900 per run.
Below are some paragraphs from the SFGATE article in question:
In California, Albertsons Companies maintains nearly 600 stores across the state, over 100 more stores than Costco and Walmart combined, making it the top dog. If the idea of Albertsons’ dominance is foreign to you, be aware that grocery chains like Safeway, Vons, Pavilions and more than a dozen others are all owned by Albertsons Companies. As Albertsons has gotten larger and more powerful, its growth has backfired on California communities.
Corporate consolidation has steadily increased over the past 40 years, pushing small independent businesses into the minority and consolidated grocers into dominance. As Albertsons protects its profits and gears up to close a handful of California locations — which would lower its operating costs — communities might not get a chance to see these grocery stores replaced. In addition to “lease squatting” uncovered by SFGATE’s investigation on “zombie stores,” companies like Albertsons can maintain their power by blocking competitors through the use of grocery restrictive covenants: stipulations written into deed and lease agreements that limit or completely prohibit the operation of a grocery store on a piece of property. As they sell a property, they write the restriction into the deed so the next owner is unable to lease the space to a grocer. This practice effectively obstructs a community’s access to food and limits its autonomy. However, finding out whether a piece of land is impacted by a grocery-restrictive covenant is tricky; restrictive covenants on retail properties are often not publicly accessible in California. Once communities realize what is happening, they’re furious and often organize to fight back.
The Shame on Safeway campaign, launched by the Food Empowerment Project, protested a restrictive covenant that Safeway placed on one of its prior locations in Vallejo, effectively banning a competitor grocer from operating in that building for 15 years. Entire childhoods went by without families having a nearby grocery store. After sending several letters to its parent company, Albertsons, about how the restrictive covenant was harming the community, the Food Empowerment Project received nothing substantial in response, other than this practice is “sometimes necessary.”