Safeway Skewered for Throwing 6,000 Workers Under the Bus in Video Parody -

[jtuck004]

Last edited Sun Dec 29, 2013, 03:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Submitted by Robert Oak on December 28, 2013 - 4:45pm

Safeway closed a whopping 72 Dominick's grocery stores resulting in 6,000 jobs lost. They acquired Dominck's grocery chain and promptly shuttered the Illinois neighborhood grocery. The excuse is these Dominick's grocery stores serve low profit margin geographical locations. In other words, Safeway doesn't want to offer grocery access to poor people. Of course a hedge fund is involved and executives made huge bucks from the introduction of another predatory hedge fund into the Safeway shareholder mix while workers got pink slips right at Christmas.

Dominick's was founded by one man, an immigrant named Dominick DiMatteo, whose son helped him build the grocery chain. But unraveling the question of who was responsible for the demise of Chicago's second-largest supermarket company isn't so straightforward. The trail leads to Northern California, where Dominick's owner, Safeway, is headquartered. And from there it goes to New York. This year, a Wall Street hedge fund called Jana Partners invested more than $300 million in Safeway stock and demanded that the company make changes, notably that it exit "subscale and lower margin geographies." That demand was made public Sept. 17.

About three weeks later, on Oct. 10, Safeway announced that its struggling chain of more than 70 Dominick's stores would be shuttered Dec. 28. The decision meant as many as 6,000 employees could lose their jobs right after Christmas, and that customers who shopped at Dominick's stores throughout the Chicago region would need to find other places to buy groceries. In the meantime, Jana Partners scored millions in profits on its Safeway investment.

In response workers made an outrageously creative video thanking Safeway for their unbridled greed and disregard for Dominick's workers. The video creator was suspended from his job on the day he would be fired anyway. That is hilarious, yes, they disciplined the poor worker bee as Safeway was shuttering the store. The below must watch video is amazingly well done and just freakin' funny! Great job grocery bag boy no longer! What we also have here is yet another fine example of the underemployed in America.

I guess like in a "It's a Wonderful Life", they are going to get to find out what the world of work is like without them...what a present to bring home to the family.

Merry Xmas, Safeway., here.

Oh yeah. This also takes out a several places where people with low-incomes bought food. So now their expenses increase, and some may not eat as frequently.

Thanks Safeway. And you can't suspend me, you selfish assholes.

[El_Johns]

1. K&R. It shows how many workers are employed below their skill level, too.

[jtuck004]

2. Absolutely n/t

[icymist]

3. Wow! What a good job for a short film.

K&R

[JDPriestly]

10. I'd like to see it get an award, maybe a Sundance award. It is very original and it expresses

a truth about the reality of our time so that people can understand it.

[jmowreader]

4. Private equity firms have pulled this shit on Safeway before

In the 1980s Henry Kravis bought Safeway and first thing he did was close all the stores in small towns.

[jtuck004]

8. Private equity firms hold over 1 in 10 American jobs in their greasy little palms... n/t

[countryjake]

5. Interview with creator of that video...worked at Dominick's for 8 yrs ...

Man suspended on last day of work at Dominick's for "Safeway Parody" video

http://video.wgntv.com/Man-suspended-on-last-day-of-work-at-Dominicks-for-Safeway-Parody-video--25479485?playlistId=12245

Across Chicagoland dozens of Dominick's stores closed for good and set more than 6,000 employees out of work. Steve Yamamoto, eight years at Dominick's himself, Saturday, got suspended just minutes after walking in for the final hours, because of what he put on YouTube. Source: WGN - Chicago

The story:
http://wgntv.com/2013/12/28/chicagoland-dominicks-stores-close-their-doors-for-the-last-time/

[JDPriestly]

11. Thanks.

[jtuck004]

12. You can do that on a smartphone? No wonder everything is going mobile. I might have

to buy one and create a movie.

He's sharp though, and if anyone stands a chance, he does. But the 30-40 year workers are just trash. 26 weeks of unemployment and on the street.

Suicide rates are now, and have been since 2010, higher than automobile deaths from accidents, and the increase that brought us that is solely the increase in numbers of the 50-65 crowd.

[countryjake]

16. Somebody at YouTube commented that there's an app for that...

and I guess Smartphones can download apps? FX guru or something like that?

I wouldn't even know, never had any cellphones.


Yeah, I really liked how he expressed sympathy for his fellow workers with decades of seniority. After years of dedicated service to a company, it's a damn shame to have to end up as a greeter at Walmart (or worse). The rise in suicide rates for those nearing retirement age is a reflection of this nation's priorities.

(disclaimer: I have two very close friends who were freezing inside the doors of a Walmart, as greeters, due to losing good, well-paying jobs elsewhere, right before they were preparing to retire. Nothing wrong with greeters, but it's a shitty job.)

[jtuck004]

18. See my post at #17. It's a business plan, a pre-conceived model that does this to these people on

purpose, in the name of profit.

It's no accident. The workers here have been in a war for over 40 years, with the enemy picking them off at will, while they don't even realize they are targets.

[countryjake]

20. Ha! I've already read that!

And I thank you for your informative posts!

Again....Fuck Safeway!

[jtuck004]

22. Kosman's site - http://www.joshkosman.com/ - for anyone that is interested. n/t

[gtar100]

6. What is it with businesses always tending to lay off workers around Christmas?

It's become a Holiday tradition nowadays. Not that there is any good time to get laid off but it's especially insulting and uncaring around the holiday season in which the general drift is to show generosity of spirit.

[dickthegrouch]

39. It's because of Tax laws

The business has to pay the annual Corporation Tax if it exists beyond the 31st December. It may have to renew various licenses, business permits, insurance and all sorts of other expenditures that aren't sustainable given the income level.
You have to file all the paperwork before the last business day of the year. The last few weeks of any year see lots of businesses have to weigh the cost of continuing against the cost of winding up.

I'm not condoning it, just answering the question.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. K&r

[NBachers]

9. Safeway used to be a decent job to have, but not any more. Their management is soo fucked up,

incompetent, and petty. The poor workers used to have good jobs, but now Safeway is a horrible mess. It's too bad.

I never cross the picket line when they're on strike.

I shop at local co-ops and farmer's markets. I do very little Safeway shopping any more. The stores just don't feel good to walk into these days.

[aggiesal]

13. Last time they had a strike . . .

the unions negotiated a 2 tiered salary structure, claiming
that they needed to compete with Walmart Super Stores.

Then Safeway proceeded to get rid of most of the upper
tiered salary employees.

At the Von's in So. Cal (owned by Safeway) the checkers
are now mostly in their late teens/early 20's getting paid
the lower tiered salaries.

[NBachers]

14. Yeah, the ones who've been there for a long time put up with so much harrassment and abuse

Management is trying very hard to drive them out of their jobs. It takes a strong, fighting will to hold up against all that.

[WillowTree]

15. There's more than just a little bit wrong with that story.

Don't misunderstand. I think the timing of the closings stinks and I feel terrible for the many long-time Dominick's employees. But the above story is misleading, to say the least.

First of all, the fact that Safeway has owned the Dominick's chain since 1998 gives lie to the contention that "They acquired Dominck's [sic] grocery chain and promptly shuttered the Illinois neighborhood grocery". Fifteen years isn't exactly "prompt".

Additionally, I'm not sure who decided that Dominick's stores were predominantly located in poorer areas of Chicagoland, but that's simply not the case. They were situated all over.......wherever you would find a Jewel store, you can be sure there would be a Dominick's not far off.

One of the reasons why the stores ceased to be profitable was that they couldn't compete with other local stores price-wise. For several years now I only shopped there on Fridays, and then only if there was something I needed or wanted on the page in their ad that featured loss-leader $5 Friday specials. If there wasn't anything there that interested me, I didn't even bother looking at the rest of the ad because their prices were just too high overall. Oh, there was one exception to that. In the fall they had the most fantastic carmel apples that were made in-house and I'd sometimes stop in for one of those. Otherwise, Dominick's weren't on my agenda.

Dominick's was trying to be more upscale, actually. After Safeway bought them, they built almost all new, bigger stores with fancier fixtures and décor and more "ambiance". I actually knew a few people who enjoyed shopping there because the stores were definitely less utilitarian. Most, however, preferred better pricing to décor. Many, myself included, like Meijer, or even a newish chain in the area called Ultra Foods which pretty much maintain a warehouse atmosphere, but are competitive insofar as selection is concerned and which offer a significant savings at the register. Target and WalMart putting full-scale grocery sections in many of their stores added even more competition and Dominick's just couldn't compete anymore.

Stores in lower-income neighborhoods may well have been losing money, but if that was the main reason behind the decision, they could have just closed those stores. Locations like Lake Bluff and Bannockburn and Naperville and Shaumburg and Lake in the Hills and Glen Ellyn and Wheaton and Crystal Lake and so many others where Dominick's had stores are all far, far from "low profit margin geographical locations" and would have certainly have remained open if that was the primary reason for closings. The fact is that, overall, the Dominick's most recent business model just made them non-competitive in general.

[jtuck004]

17. I don't know anything about them in particular, but the way this typically goes with private equity

is that they make an acquisition, use debt to pump up the gross, maybe even put in some new fixtures and pretend they are doing some kind of mgmt.

Their goal is to keep a good chunk of that money that was borrowed - they call the stolen money "fees" - and if they can sell the acquisition, or make money, cool. If they can't they throw all the employees in the trash and shutter the place.

(Good book out there by Josh Kosman on this - literally tens of millions of jobs up in smoke because of the greed of these profiteering bastards.)

The end of the story leaves the suits with millions in their pockets, and the employees working in McDonalds or chewing the end of a .38.

Fuck the owners of Safeway. And Staples/Mi$$ RobMe, (I try to never miss that one) and all the other bastards that pursue this underhanded business model. There is no difference between them and people who bomb little children with nerve gas that leaves them writhing in pain before they die, and they should be treated the same way.

[countryjake]

19. Isn't that the way Rmoney does business?

Fuck Safeway!

[jtuck004]

21. And The Blackstone Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Carlyle Group, several others.

These people lost their jobs, and may lose their lives, by design. It wasn't just "the market". That's the story they pay the cheerleaders to foist on the fools, to keep the workers in the field from storming the house and burning it down.

Because if these people ever realize that these businesses, and their politicians (from both sides of the aisle) are in bed with each other and working 24x7 to take everything they have, that the policies we are seeing written are to our detriment, things might just start to shake a little.

But so far, they have our minds, and that's the best and only weapon they need to keep themselves safe, fat, and happy.

[WillowTree]

23. Might want to stick to things that you do know about "in particular".

The stores were re-built and, in some cases, just remodeled ten to twelve years ago. This hedge fund got involved within the last year or so.

An area, even one as large and diverse as the metropolitan Chicago area, can only support so many grocery stores. We have Jewel and Meijer and Aldi and Ultra chains, and now Target and WalMart are in the mix, and don't forget that Costco and Sam's Club have groceries, and now we have a couple of new chains, Fresh Market and Mariano's, are growing in the area. As I said before, Dominick's just wasn't competitive anymore and, be it Safeway corporate or the hedge fund or both making the decision, exiting the Chicago market was a good business decision. Heartbreaking for the employees, but it was inevitable. Just a matter of when in this case.

[jtuck004]

24. I know enough not to make excuses for thieving bastards.

[WillowTree]

26. Whatever.

You started out by saying that you weren't familiar with the particulars of this specific case, but now you're all huffy and sure of yourself despite the facts.

While often it really is lyin', thievin' bastards shitting on the Little Guy, it doesn't change the fact that sometimes, you really do need to "know when to fold 'em". This was one of those times, from a smart business perspective. The fact that you refuse to believe that doesn't make it untrue.

Enjoy your day.

[HangOnKids]

48. Speaking of huffy

Enjoy your day! REALLY!

[countryjake]

32. +1

[jtuck004]

25. Did Wall Street firm seal Dominick's fate?

Dominick's was founded by one man, an immigrant named Dominick DiMatteo, whose son helped him build the grocery chain. But unraveling the question of who was responsible for the demise of Chicago's second-largest supermarket company isn't so straightforward. The trail leads to Northern California, where Dominick's owner, Safeway, is headquartered. And from there it goes to New York.
This year, a Wall Street hedge fund called Jana Partners invested more than $300 million in Safeway stock and demanded that the company make changes, notably that it exit "subscale and lower margin geographies."

That demand was made public Sept. 17.

About three weeks later, on Oct. 10, Safeway announced that its struggling chain of more than 70 Dominick's stores would be shuttered Dec. 28. The decision meant as many as 6,000 employees could lose their jobs right after Christmas, and that customers who shopped at Dominick's stores throughout the Chicago region would need to find other places to buy groceries.

In the meantime, Jana Partners scored millions in profits on its Safeway investment.
...

I wonder how much of those millions they gave back to the people that earned them, the people who put in 30 or 40 years to make them a profit, who will now wind up in poverty as they spend down their retirement plans.

here.

Speaking of things one knows about, maybe it was thieving bastards stealing money by ruining people's lives for profit. Because. apparently, there weren't too many stores before the pirates arrived.

[WillowTree]

27. ".......apparently, there weren't too many stores before the pirates arrived"

Where did you get that demonstrably inaccurate little scrap of information?

And by the way, the Trib article that you link to includes this, which pretty much supports what I've been saying:

"Safeway had "been performing very poorly in Chicago, and the problems date back to almost immediately after they bought" Dominick's in 1998, said Meredith Adler, who follows Safeway as an analyst for Barclays Capital. 'I will not make a whole list of the things they screwed up. But they screwed up a lot of things.'"

It is what it is, despite your snark.

[alcibiades_mystery]

51. A relevant particular: The Dominick's at Lincoln and Farragut was completely rebuilt in 2008-2009

It is now shuttered, with no prospective replacement. A completely new building. It'll sit empty, I suppose.

I agree with you in this thread; the OP makes a lot of false claims that nobody who lives in Chicago could take seriously - and it's bizarre, because exaggeration isn't needed to critique Safeway's behavior here.

[jtuck004]

28. Inside the Private Equity Game (2009) - This is why they lost their jobs...

And here is a description of the people who make excuses for them, people who would work harder to save the Master's house from a fire than their own, instead of working to support their country and their neighbors.

[jtuck004]

29. Jana Partners Reduces Stake in Safeway - after they pushed for this layoff and made $$$.

...
Jana Partners, which has successfully pushed for breakups of McGraw-HillMHFI +0.36% and Marathon PetroleumMPC -0.46%, purchased its initial stake in the supermarket chain in September. Jana said in a regulatory filing at the time that its representatives spoke with Safeway about cutting stores and returning capital to investors.

Since Jana bought the shares, Safeway has said it will exit the Chicago market and sell its 72 Dominick’s grocery stores there.

Safeway’s shares are up more than 20% since Jana announced its stake but dropped more than 2% in after hours-trading Wednesday following the filing.

Jana Partners, with roughly $7 billion under management, has had an impressive run this year. Jana’s two main funds gained 16.6% and 25.4% through the end of November, according to a source familiar with the fund."
...

here.

$7 billion under mgmt, with 2% of that as fees to put in their pocket, no matter what happens, as they end the careers of people who have worked in these places 30-40 years. 6000 people laid off in just one of their little plays...and that's just one of them. And that doesn't count the money they make from the stock manipulation, or the sales of assets.

It isn't "market competition" that causes the layoffs, the human tragedy these scumbags leave in their wake in the multiple deals they do.

It's greed.

[onethatcares]

30. every time I read something like this

I am reminded of the movie, "Goodfellas".

Our country has devolved to legalized racketeering and corruption, with laws being passed to assure the

dons don't have to serve any time but they do get all the money.

Now, back to the Duck Dynasty contrived contraversy

[hack89]

31. 15 years is "promptly"?

Their market share fell 10% over that period - they have been steadily closing stores for years.

[jtuck004]

33. Jana Partners, which has successfully pushed for breakups of McGraw-HillMHFI +0.36%

and Marathon PetroleumMPC -0.46%, purchased its initial stake in the supermarket chain in September. Jana said in a regulatory filing at the time that its representatives spoke with Safeway about cutting stores and returning capital to investors.

And announced the closing of 72 stores within a month...

Good money was made all around, picked from the bones of the employees.

[hack89]

34. The were a failing business well before that

Companies chop failing business all the time. They were in a very competitive market and had lost nearly half their market share.

[jtuck004]

35. Thieving bastards swoop in and pick the bones of the people who do the work, for a profit, yes. n/t

[ChisolmTrailDem]

40. Wait a minute, are you siding with the Banksters? n/t

[hack89]

41. No. nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

36. Part of the problem from what I've read is that Safeway didn't own the properties Dominicks sat on.

If another chain wanted to give it a go at the same locations, a Marianos, TJ's, or Whole Foods, for instance, given they'd want to do much more than just put up a new sign on the building, seems like they'd have to ask themselves why they'd want to buy all or part of the Dominicks chain when they can probably swoop in later, cut a deal with the landlord, and maybe even pick up Dominick's fixtures at fire sale prices?

[jtuck004]

42. If that was your goal it would make sense. That's not the case here. Jana, or another private

equity firm sees assets which they can make money on in a short-term deal. In this case they buy into Safeway and use their bargaining power to dump all the employees of that prior acquisition. They profit from the short term increase one gets in the stock (Which they dumped shortly after getting into this), as well as the 2% fees from the $7 billion they have under "management" (The money they use to go around disrupting people's lives for short-term profit), more profit from the tax treatment...

Pirates have no interest in the long-term, or the people whose lives they destroy. All they care about is amassing a few million $$$. If it costs you and your co-workers everything you've ever worked for, well, they don't even think about you at all. At all.

It's like keeping a bank account with borrowed money, paying y0oruself a salary from it, and using the balance to buy things from grieving widows who either don't know what the "things" are worth or are so overcome by grief that they are easily taken advantage of. You then re-sell the stuff, and not only do you get to keep any profit but you have also conveniently arranged with the government to give you preferred tax treatment on the money you borrow and make. Whether your deals turn out or not, you still make lots of money, and leave misery in your wake.

Now blow that model up to life-size and substitute Simmons mattress, Dominick's Foods, or any one of hundreds of other businesses, some of which were places that people here used to work at for the grieving widower. Yes, any day they could have sold off their stuff and ruined themselves, but didn't. Not only because they need a job 10 years from now, and didn't go to school and prepare just to wake up after 30 years of working somewhere to hand their job to someone in a foreign country that would do it for ten cents on the dollar, but also because the government doesn't give them the same tax advantages for burning all their assets that is given to the thieving private equity companies.

They don't care about you, your business, or your country. All they care about is putting profits in their pocket, and, frankly, you could burn to the ground and die with your family and friends for all they care.

[WillowTree]

44. Sure. It would have been far better.......

.......to just keep trying to tough it out with a brand that wasn't making it in the Chicago area anymore and jeopardize the whole company and the jobs of their other 165,000 employees. Safeway's business model was never a big success in the Chicago market for a variety of reasons. They came to realize that and tried to sell the Dominick's chain ten years or so ago. When they couldn't find a buyer, they decided to try to make a go of it rather than just shut everything down back then, but it hasn't worked and, as those of us who know the area have been saying, they've been losing market share little by little ever since. Jann may have given Safeway the impetus to make this move now, but it was coming one way of the other.

It's almost humorous the way you think you know more about this situation than those of us who live here and have seen Dominick's struggling for years now.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

45. I'm not sure we're on the same wavelength here. Dominicks was for sale. In whole or in part.

A few stores were sold and will remain open though I don't know under what name ultimately. The rest closed and Safeway will get nothing except what they can unload at auction or something. In my post I'm just suggesting Safeway would have had an easier time selling the chain (and keeping the workers working) if there was real estate involved.

[WillowTree]

46. Word is.......

.......that Mariano's is going to move in to 11 of the closing Dominick's stores and Whole Foods will be taking over 7 or 8 of them. I also read somewhere that Jewel may be taking over a few of their buildings, but I don't know if those will be new stores or just moving existing stores into the newer, formerly Dominick's locations. They will all need to be staffed, so some of the displaced Dominick's employees will no doubt be able to find jobs in those stores. Also, Mariano's and Fresh Market are opening other new stores, too, so hopefully those stores will be able to take some of them on, as well.

[spanone]

37. k&r...

[myrna minx]

38. K&R - Well done!

[BobUp]

43. Say what?

Low incomes bought food @ Doms? I find that hard to believe. Anyone who has ever shopped at Doms knows their prices are out of this world, comparable to shopping Jewel or Albertsons, higher than hell. Most of us poor folks shop Aldi foods.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

47. Yeah, that wasn't expressed well. Dominicks had stores in both low and high income areas.

I'm sure they adjusted their prices and offerings by neighborhood, just like Jewel.

[BobUp]

49. In the early

2000's, we had a brand new Jewel store in my city, Kenosha, and we loved their deals on sirloin and chuck steaks, unfortunately, they moved out after only operating for a few years. Pushed out by competition from Super-Valu, Piggly Wiggly ? I don't know. It was definitely a change though, probably the first Jewel in Wisconsin?

Local Walmart commercials kill me though, they brag on how much you can save by shopping there over Jewel, well of course, they're in direct competition with other food stores.

When we lived in Chicago, my mom & dad shopped Doms, but their favorite place to shop was Maxwell Street and Randolph Street, back in the old days.

You could find anything and everything you needed on Maxwell Street. Canned goods, paper products, vegetables, meats, small appliances, fishing poles, and just about anything you needed. As it goes, everything from soup to nuts.

Albertsons and SuperValu[edit]
Albertsons acquired American Stores' holdings, including Jewel and Jewel-Osco stores, in 1999.[9]

Seven years later, parent company Albertsons and its stores would be taken over by two separate groups. On May 30, 2006, shareholders approved the break-up of Albertsons. All Jewel-Osco and Jewel Food Stores outside of Springfield, Illinois were now wholly owned by SuperValu. The Springfield stores, meanwhile, were acquired by an investment group led by Cerberus Capital Management. Both of those have since been sold to Niemann Foods, an independent operator of grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores in Central Illinois which now operates them under the Cub Foods–County Market brand. All free-standing Osco drugstores are now owned by CVS Pharmacy. The Osco name is still used for pharmacies within Albertsons, Jewel, Star Market and Shaw's.

SuperValu announced on January 5, 2007, that it would offer for sale its Jewel-Osco stores in the Milwaukee area.[10] Pick 'n Save agreed to take five of the 15 stores.[11] Two other stores were purchased by Lena's Food Market.[12] SuperValu announced to its workers that the remaining stores, if unsold, would close at the end of March.[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_(supermarket)

[alcibiades_mystery]

50. I agree with the main point of the article

But some parts of it are odd:

"The excuse is these Dominick's grocery stores serve low profit margin geographical locations."

Dominick's stores were a major grocery chain, not a "neighborhood" grocery. They also weren't exclusively or even mainly located in "low profit margin geographical locations." They were spread throughout the city, and even in the suburbs. There was a Dominick's that just closed on Green Bay Road near Kenilworth, for instance - Kenilworth being one of the richest "geographical areas" in the United States. There was one on Fullerton and Sheffield in Lincoln Park, hardly a poor food desert! There was one on Southport near Wrigleyville - again, massive net worth and 2 million dollar houses in every direction. The sentence is simply and demonstrably false. There's no need for such exaggerations to make the case here.

[jtuck004]

52. Actually, I think that came from the Jana fund wording as they pushed to get rid of these jobs...

"This year, a Wall Street hedge fund called Jana Partners invested more than $300 million in Safeway stock and demanded that the company make changes, notably that it exit "subscale and lower margin geographies. That demand was made public Sept. 17."

It was in one of the links...

[alcibiades_mystery]

53. Well, it was the writer's attempt to turn the Jana fund wording into the reason for the closings

That it is demonstrably false leads one to believe that th writer's claims are a bit exaggerated. Perhaps they closed the stores because they were "subscale," for instance (i.e., performing badly in a business sense), rather than because they "serve(d) low profit margin geographical locations" (these are, in fact, the writer's words, not Jana's - it's right there in your OP.

So, the writer has transformed two possible reasons into one, then packaged Dominick's as if it was some savior serving the poor in Chicago food deserts, only to be stomped out by the drooling, evil hedge fund. The problem is that this simply doesn't reflect the reality of what people who actually live in Chicago know (I'm guessing you don't live anywhere near here): Dominick's was not a small grocery store serving the poor that was hijacked and crushed by a hedge fund. It was a massive grocery store chain operating throughout Chicagoland (including its richest areas) that was struggling to compete with new market entrants (Whole Foods, Mariano's), traditional competitors (Jewel/Osco), low-cost alternatives (Aldi), and the occasional hipster joints (Trader Joe's).

By the way, we have/had a Dominick's store two blocks away from my house. I drive a mile to the Jewel or Mariano's, because that Dominick's store absolutely SUCKED. Maybe that's why their business failed.

[jtuck004]

54. It was the thieving scumbags at Jana and Safeway, but it's clear that not everyone

is all that picky about who they pal around with, if the money's good.

[alcibiades_mystery]

55. Like I said, I agree with the main point, but the OP is false in numerous ways

And demonstrably so.

Dominick's was not a neighborhood grocery that served the poor. That's just silly, and false, and everyone who lives in or around Chicago knows it. Indeed, the major pushback you've gotten on this thread is from Chicagoans giving you the "Oh, come on!" about the more laughable claims in the OP. Pretty much everyone disputing your point is a Chicago or Chicagoland person challenging the particulars of the OP. There's a reason for that: they're not true.

You don't need to descend into silly to make your point. The fact that the writer you cite in the OP twists the truth so blatantly and obviously makes his or her argument less effective.

[WillowTree]

56. Actually, with regard to the Dominick's closings.......

.......I think the term "low profit margin geographies" as used by Jana (if, indeed, that was their wording) had less to do in this instance with the economics of the neighborhoods served by the chain and more to do with the fact that the Safeway-owned stores in the metropolitan Chicago area (geographical location) were showing a low profit margin. Which anyone who's familiar with the facts of this situation knows was definitely the case.

I work in the I-88/Naperville corridor and sometimes do some shopping at lunchtime at Danada which serves the Wheaton/Naperville/Glen Ellyn juncture, hardly a low income area, and where the Dominick's and the Jewel stores are/were literally directly across the street from each other and I will say that the Dominick's there had a definite advantage in that, if you were in a hurry, you could get in and out of that store more quickly because both the store itself and the parking lot were so much less crowded. Yet the Jewel store, despite it's less-than-optimal parking lot layout, is always busy. And that was the case with the stores across from one another on south Naper Blvd. and the ones a block apart on Roosevelt Rd. in Glen Ellyn and elsewhere.

The fact is that Dominick's, once one of the two biggest grocery chains in the Chicago area, has been a dying enterprise for years, notably and progressively since Safeway bought them and started messing with the brand 15 years ago. While I do believe that Jana's involvement was the impetus for the closings happening now, the cold hard fact is that they would have happened with or without them within the near foreseeable future anyway (which is, no doubt, behind why Jana would have made the recommendation in the first place).