Obama forces successful supermarkets to be sold to a failing company that shuts them down

The Obama administration recently forced successful supermarket chains Albertsons and Safeway to sell some of their supermarkets to the Haggen supermarket chain.

Six months later, Haggen declared bankruptcy, and said it would close at least 100 of its supermarkets.

“This is the fastest (failure) in modern supermarket history… In all of retail, I haven’t seen anything like this.”

This does not surprise me. Obama is a cronyist, and everything he touches turns into bantha pudu.

What a great article you linked. The writer has a keen sense of humor.

From the article....

The FTC’s Bureau of Competition concluded that the $9.2 billion merger of Safeway and Albertsons would hurt consumers in 130 local markets, including Los Angeles. The government said it would block the deal unless the companies sold 168 stores in Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

And that’s where Haggen came in. The FTC gave its approval for the 18-store chain based in Bellingham, Wash., to buy 146 Albertsons, Vons and Pavilions stores.

The problems began immediately. Sales were sluggish and employees were laid off. The union representing retail workers in Los Angeles and Central California, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 770, filed a grievance, alleging that employees were misled into staying with Haggen when they could have transferred to another Vons or Albertsons store.

Meanwhile, Albertsons filed a $41.1 million lawsuit alleging that Haggen failed to pay for the inventory in 38 of the stores it acquired.

Soon Haggen announced it was closing 27 stores, including two in Simi Valley, one in Santa Clarita, one in Newbury Park and 12 others in California.

That was too much for Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, who wrote Assembly Bill 359 to protect workers at large grocery stores from being fired during a change of ownership.

“Wall Street mergers and acquisitions that make big money for corporations and private equity firms should not jeopardize jobs of the grocery workers who live and work in our communities,” Gonzalez said in a news release.

The president of UFCW Local 135 in San Diego, Mickey Kasparian, said he was “ecstatic” when Gov. Brown signed the bill. “It’s important that workers have a fair chance to keep their jobs,” he said.

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None of this would have happened if the federal government had not interfered in a business deal that didn’t need any government interference. Albertsons and Safeway were not going to monopolize the grocery business and gouge consumers like some 19th-century general store selling gold-panning supplies to Forty-Niners. What planet is the FTC living on? Do they know that Amazon will deliver groceries to your house?

The FTC’s decision to forcibly rearrange the ownership of 168 stores has disrupted the lives of hundreds of grocery workers and needlessly diverted business resources from store operations to regulatory compliance.

Maybe Haggen would like to take over the FTC’s “Bureau of Competition.” The faster they close it, the better.

The whole article is great. My question is....who, at Haggen’s got this govt *deal*? Why Haggen’s? Follow the $$.

I can attest to both Albertson’s and Safeway.

Our area had an Albertson’s, for years, that was awful. Terrible smell at entrance and near the meat dept.

Finally, thankfully, years later it was replaced/bought out by Randall’s. Great store, higher prices, but worth it for the selection and customer service. Randall’s was then bought out by Safeway. Same high standards were kept, and we had the great addition of Lucerne dairy products, and lately, Open Nature organic products. Life was good.

Now, with this Albertson’s merger (groan), I’ve already noticed less variety/selection and less of the O/Open Nature products :( We shall see how it ends up, but we are disappointed at the thought of having to go back to an Albertson’s level, after being *spoiled* by Randall’s.

We had a really nice new Albertsons near here, a decent one not to far, and a really nasty one the other direction. The nicest one was the first to close. After being empty several years, it is now a Ranch 99 Asian supermarket. The other one closed when Albertsons sold off most of its stores. After being vacant several years, it’s now a Walmart grocery. And the dirty, crummy one that they couldn’t get rid of stayed open. It looked pretty backwards to me, but it probably had to do with the leases.

It’s generally Walmart, Aldi and Kroger (in that order) for me now, with an occaisional foray to Fiesta Mart for fresh produce. I haven’t been in a Tom Thumb/Randalls/Safeway in years.

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Obama forces successful supermarket chains to sell supermarkets to a failing company that shuts them down