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Catalinans must boat to market or go past friends in picket line

By Laura Wides
Associated Press

AVALON -- Residents of tiny Santa Catalina Island have a tough choice during the ongoing grocery clerks strike: Cross a picket line staged by friends and neighbors at the only supermarket in town or cross the ocean to shop on the mainland.

The situation has strained relations in the close-knit community and forced its 3,500 residents to get creative about shopping while coping with their mixed feelings.

Some residents are scouring health food shops and convenience stores to find the items they need. Others are giving shopping lists to neighbors who aren't shy about crossing the line.

Lorrie Blakley got a frantic call before she left the mainland to visit the resort island.

"My mom called and said, 'Bring eggs and cat food,"' Blakley said, explaining that her mother would rather travel 26 miles across the sea to the mainland than cross the picket line outside Vons.

Ana Jimenez, 66, doesn't feel that way. She made no apologies for going to the supermarket to get eggs and produce. Strikers didn't give her any trouble.

"They've known me for years," she said. "And they like me well enough."

Striking clerk Carlos Cubillo said things are different on the mainland than the island, where it's hard to ask neighbors to stay away from the store.

"We love our community," said Cubillo, who is also a volunteer firefighter, church leader and radio disc jockey on the island. "We apologize for these problems."

A total of 70,000 grocery clerks from three chains -- Kroger Co.'s Ralphs, Safeway Inc.'s Vons and Albertson's Inc. -- went on strike or were locked out Saturday from San Luis Obispo to San Diego in a contract dispute involving the cost of health care coverage and other issues.

Despite the steady presence of pickets on the sidewalk, Catalina's main Vons has stayed open through problems like temporarily running out of meat Thursday.

A handful of clerks picketed outside the store a block from the ocean. Passers-by honked in support as they cruised by in golf carts used to get around the island. In recent days, local businesses have donated pizza and drinks to strikers.

Clerk Carmen Seybole, 43, said it was hard seeing people she knows shop in the store.

"It hurts a little bit," said Seybole, who was joined on the picket line by her 3-year-old son, Shane. Among the shoppers were mothers of Shane's friends.

"They apologize and say 'we don't want to do this,"' Seybole said as Shane chased pigeons with a picket sign in hand. "They are our friends. I want to say something, but I hold back."

Helen Howard, 43, a personal trainer and cross-country coach at the local high school, had refrained from shopping at the Vons market, relying on food bought on the mainland, but crumbled Thursday.

She darted into the store to buy baking supplies for her daughter's school carnival.

"I really don't want to have to run all over town" gathering ingredients, Howard said. "I have to go in because I have to get the baking stuff. ... It's awkward. I know all these families. I teach some of their kids."

City Manager Rob Clark, 50, said the town's mayor had unsuccessfully petitioned the union to exempt Avalon from the strike. Clark has avoided shopping at Vons, relying on his wife to fetch groceries from the mainland, where she works.

But he regretfully acknowledged that he might eventually have to cross the line.

"Some of them are parents of my kid's friends," he said of the striking workers.