Thanksgiving goods in short supply
By Holiday shopping more challenging this year BY JOHN WOOD Daily Press Staff Writer
With the grocery store strike and the Thanksgiving shopping rush in full swing Tuesday, most shoppers were finding someplace other than the major chains to buy their turkey day grub.
Stores like Co-opportunity and Whole Foods reported sales up by as much as 25 percent while most shoppers avoided crossing picket lines in front of Vons and Albertsons.
Though Ralphs recently opened its doors to stem the loss of profits to the unionized chain stores, workers at all three are on strike — and that means all three outlets will be closed on Thanksgiving Day this year.
To help handle the boom in business, Whole Foods, which is usually closed on Thanksgiving, has decided to open its doors, but only until 4 p.m. Co-opportunity general manager Will Simon said his store will be closed as it is on every Thanksgiving, to give workers family time.
3BA,“We’ve seen a lot of new faces,” Simon, 69, said of the strike. “It’s the kind of boost you don’t want because people are suffering. But the shoppers have to go somewhere.”
While picketers asked shoppers to turn around Tuesday afternoon, some of the tensions of the seven-week strike were apparent.
As people trickled in and out of Vons at Broadway and Lincoln Boulevard, Tom Hancock, 47, of West LA, a checker at the store for the past eight years, told customers, “How about shopping at Ralphs? There’s no picket line at Ralphs. You’re hurting 87,000 families.”
Some shoppers ignored him. Others defended themselves angrily, saying they were against the strike and not to bother them.
Robert Garcia, 34, a general contractor who lives in Santa Monica, said he was sick of the attitude exhibited by some picketers. Garcia was at the store with his son buying chapstick Tuesday. He said he had already gotten a free turkey from Vons earlier in the week.
494,“I’ve got to get out there and work every single day,” Garcia said, adding that if the workers aren’t happy with their pay and benefits they should start looking for new jobs. “I’m not trying to make or break these people.”
Inside, manager Brian Loudermilk wouldn’t comment except to say what was obvious to anybody shopping — it was slow, it has been slow and it will stay slow until the union and the corporate executives settle their differences.
Many of the picketers said they were holding out hope that the recent decision by delivery drivers to join the strike will lend some weight to their cause and initiate some resolution. Inventory on store shelves already is less stocked than it was before the strike.
But until then, Hancock said the workers will continue their picketing, which has been reduced from 24 hours to coincide with store hours. Most unionized grocery stores now close at 10 p.m.
“Because it’s in its seventh week, more people are shopping now than in the first week or two,” Hancock said. “But I can tell you that a lot of people, a lot of people in this neighborhood have really been caring about us.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 26, 2003. Read the original PDF.