A Bad Taste Left in Carson
The saga of a Carson ice cream parlor being kicked out of its strip-mall home of 23 years to make way for a Baskin-Robbins franchise is not just another example of chains replacing mom-and-pop shops. It’s also a tale of corporate bullies, disloyal landlords, double-dealing city officials and indifferent billionaires -- the combination of which should inspire enough indignation to give this story the happy ending it deserves.
Big chains run local stores out of business all the time. Sometimes they are genuinely better. Other times they simply market themselves better and undercut prices. Customers aid and abet these changes -- priding themselves on individuality but seeking conformity, switching stores to save a few pennies, then mourning the loss of a neighborhood institution.
But as reported last week in The Times, attorneys, not competition, are driving Ken’s Ice Cream from its home. After stalling on renewing owner Wanda Johnson-Pope’s lease on the shop named after her son, the company that manages the strip mall told her she had to go. The Summit Team company cited a “no competitors” clause in the lease it had just signed with the new Baskin Robbins franchise. Too bad the 64-year-old widow never thought to add such a clause to her lease in all those years.
Johnson-Pope’s super-sized scoops of rich pecan praline ice cream have built deep loyalty, which she has cemented with two decades of generosity to local schools and charities. Now customers are rallying to save their neighborhood ice cream parlor, and they and Johnson-Pope’s remaining strip mall neighbors want an explanation from Carson officials, who promised that an 85-acre, $130-million sports complex opening down the street would be good not just for billionaire developer Philip Anschutz and his Galaxy soccer team but for business. Did they mean national chains only, or will underdog local businesses stand a chance?
Southern Californians might look at the outcome of this tale for clues to what to expect the next time someone floats the idea of building a business-friendly football stadium in their neighborhood.
