SOUTH-CENTRAL : Upset Residents Target Supermarket

A group of angry South-Central residents has vowed to continue tying up checkout lines at a Viva Market to protest delays in building a proposed supermarket at Vermont Avenue and Adams Boulevard.

Last week, members of the Southern California Organizing Committee delayed checkout lines at the Viva Market at Western Avenue and 18th Street by paying for items with pennies. The campaign is in protest of what organizers claim is the unwillingness of Food 4 Less Supermarkets Inc., the parent company of Viva Markets, to build a supermarket at the Vermont Avenue site.

“Our objective is to immobilize the market and send (Food 4 Less Chief Executive Officer Ron Burkle) a message that he has to deal with us or we’re going to do more of this,” said Orinio Opinaldo, a member of SCOC’s market strategy committee.

Plans to build a supermarket at Vermont Avenue and Adams Boulevard have been in place for nearly nine years. In July, the City Council approved a plan allowing Food 4 Less and Bakewell Development, a private company owned by Brotherhood Crusade President Danny Bakewell, to build on land that is partly owned by the city.

The project has been delayed for several reasons, including a residents’ campaign to get a full-services supermarket rather than a warehouse-style store, and a dispute between preservationists and the Community Redevelopment Agency over the fate of several historic homes near the site of the proposed store.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said a meeting is scheduled for this week between the agency and Food 4 Less to work out “the fine points as it relates to the houses.”

“We’ll be calling for them to set a (groundbreaking) date,” Ridley-Thomas said. “This is taking more time than I’d wished.”

Resident Claudia Noonan, who has been active in campaigning for a new supermarket, said: “I think that, collectively, a number of the parties involved are not willing to compromise sufficiently for the betterment of the community. I share SCOC’s frustration because I drive five miles to go shopping.”

Representatives of Food 4 Less did not return calls for comment.