At least four more Shoppers Food Warehouse grocery stores in the D.C. region are slated to close Nov. 8, leaving local leaders distressed.
Three of the closing grocery stores are located in Maryland’s Prince George’s County.
The small quantity and low quality of grocery stores already operating in the county are a concern, and this week, five members of the Prince George’s County Council wrote a letter to the grocery chain’s parent company requesting a sit-down with the company CEO.
The letter also blasted the company over the negative impact the closures will have on the county.
“They’re closing stores that we need,” Prince George’s County Council member Tom Dernoga said. Two of the stores closing are in his district. “Those stores are not unprofitable,” he said.
Another signature on the letter came from Council member Eric Olson, whose district includes a store in New Carrollton that has already closed.
“It sounds like classic corporate greed,” Olson said. “They’re profitable stores. They serve the community. Good union jobs. There’s no reason in my mind why those stores should be closing.”
Shoppers stores in College Park, Laurel, Capitol Heights and Germantown, Maryland, are all slated to close on Nov. 8. But the College Park location is already well on its way to closing.
“There’s only a few things left, and they’re, of course, marking them down very heavily,” one customer said.
Jose Hernandez, who said he’s shopped at the College Park store for more than a decade, agreed with county council members that the store’s parent company does not serve as “good stewards of the community.”
“The people that have jobs that are living off this, how do you get a two-week notice and have to go find another livelihood?” he said. “It’s ridiculous. You’re literally taking jobs away from people that have been working here probably 10, 20-plus years.”
“We want these companies to be partners with the communities that they serve and understand the consequences of just pulling up shop, and what that means to the residents that have been loyal customers,” Council member Krystal Oriadha said.
She said this was another example of why she wants the county to study the feasibility of opening its own grocery store, while offering incentives for other grocery stores to open around the county where there aren’t many stores now.
“There has to be someone in the market that is going to make sure that marginalized communities, unserved communities are still going to have the basic needs,” she said.
While other Shoppers stores around the region aren’t closing, at least yet, Oriadha said it might be time for county residents to spend their money at stores that operate like they want to be part of the community.
“How do we make an effort to support businesses that want to stay in our community, that want to grow in our community, that want to be good stewards of the resources that they have and making sure that they serve everyone?” she asked.
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