A Misreading of the Market

By objecting to a Latino supermarket’s plans to open a new outlet, Anaheim planners disclose an ethnic bias that shows, at best, lamentable ignorance about Southern California’s economic landscape.

City officials are throwing blockades in the path of Gigante USA, saying that it’s the wrong kind of store for the Anaheim Plaza shopping center. They envision the mall as a regional draw that would pull in customers from throughout the city and beyond. The redevelopment director expresses concern in a letter that Mexico-based Gigante “does not cater to the public at large” and surprise that the Latino-themed market’s “signage and music were predominantly in Spanish.”

Presumably, the idea is that non-Latinos would feel alien in a store where the language and tunes are unfamiliar and where much of the food is from another ethnic heritage. Sort of the way Latino and Asian immigrants might feel as they eye the mac and cheese and listen to the golden oldies at Pavilions?

This Gigante store, the first of its kind in Orange County, would open in a city whose largest demographic group is Latino, 47% of the population. How much more “public at large” could you get? It would do business in a county where Latinos make up more than 30% of the population and have emerged as a potent consumer force.

That hardly amounts to a strictly neighborhood draw.

The bigger chains--Ralphs, Vons, Albertson’s--recognize this new economic reality with their rapidly expanding sections that cater to Latino and Asian tastes. In certain stores, Mexican- and Central American-style food offerings are as prominent as Hamburger Helper and hot dogs.

And still, Anaheim officials don’t seem to realize that in a population as diverse as this area’s, the word “ethnic” no longer equates with a narrow interest.

The Southern California food industry serves a sophisticated palate always in search of the new or the best. Home cooks will drive several towns away just to find an honest garam masala at an Indian grocery. The pan-Asian 99 Ranch markets draw a diverse crowd for the live fish and frozen lumpia.

Gigante markets--where the signs are in both Spanish and English--sell a dozen varieties of chiles and freshly made tortillas, yet Anaheim officials can’t seem to see that this store might be as big a regional draw as the Mervyn’s department store that was welcomed to the plaza.

Anaheim, wake up and smell the bolillos.