Vons Abruptly Closes Market in Compton
Supermarket giant Vons abruptly shuttered its 6-year-old Compton store on Sunday and announced plans to turn it over to a lower-wage independent chain.
Vons officials say the Compton Boulevard store--one of the first major supermarkets to return to Compton after the 1992 Los Angeles riots--had struggled from the start. And further attempts to change the store’s decor and offerings didn’t boost sales.
“It just wasn’t a viable store for us,” Vons spokesman Kevin Herglotz said. “It wasn’t profitable.”
Vons approached Lynwood-based Super Center Concepts Inc., which owns a chain of 10 Superior Super Warehouse Foods markets that cater primarily to Latinos, about taking over the lease. The deal is expected to be complete in May, and Super Center officials say they hope to reopen a revamped store in September.
Vons opened the Compton store in 1994 to much fanfare, as part of a $100-million urban development initiative.
The closure also will deprive residents of a Wells Fargo bank branch located inside the store. The bank, which recently invested a quarter of a million dollars in the branch, was notified only last week of the closure and given until June 13 to leave, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Trigg said. The entrance to Vons will remain open until then to allow access to the bank, which has not yet found another location in the community.
Vons store employees were given the opportunity to move to one of the chain’s surrounding stores, Herglotz said.
Bewildered shoppers gathered outside the store Monday, and some city activists reacted to the closure with rage, blaming the mayor and City Council for failing to inform residents ahead of time.
“It’s a travesty,” said Compton school board member Basil Kimbrew, who plans to organize a formal protest against the closure later this week. “Vons market is a pillar in our community.”
Supermarket analysts and chain owners say the country’s largest chains are increasingly having a harder time competing with independent chains, which offer cheaper produce and services such as service meat counters, fish tanks and tortillerias.
“When companies get big I don’t think they can stay in touch with the community,” said Mimi Song, Super Center president. “Each community needs different kinds of products.”
Super Center will spend $3 million to $4 million to renovate the store, its fourth in and around South-Central Los Angeles.
The warehouse-style outlet will likely have lower costs and a better chance of success, but the change of hands stings, said city councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux.
“Vons is a major market. It has a name. Superior, most people haven’t even heard of,” she said. “This is a blow.”
Community officials are also upset about the loss of higher-paying union jobs and have alerted labor representatives. “I want to make sure we get a union wage store and if we don’t we’re going to protest,” Kimbrew said.
The Compton closure is not the first instance in which residents of urban Los Angeles communities have felt betrayed by Vons. The supermarket giant pledged to build a store at Vermont and Slauson avenues following the riots but scrapped the plans after years of intensive preparations.
A corporate merger had changed the ranks of management, and a poor performing store in North Las Vegas had Vons officials worried, said Linda Griego, former head of Rebuild LA, the entity set up in the wake of the riots to help rebuild.
“They kept saying it’s better for us not to open at all than to open and close,” Griego said. “It’s much more difficult, and PR-wise it’s really bad to do that.”
Vons officials said they have spent $60 million to revamp stores in the inner-city, and insisted they are just as committed to opening new stores in urban areas. “We have a commitment to communities of all sizes and shapes throughout Southern California,” Herglotz said.
