Aldermen sound like store loser
September 27, 2006
Chicago aldermen, it appears sometimes, sure have a funny idea about why businesses are in business. The latest evidence is the call by some aldermen to stop buying groceries at all Jewels, to protest the fact that not enough people are buying groceries at one Jewel.
That's not how they'd put it, of course. The aldermen -- including Ariel Reboyras ( 30th), Ray Suarez (31st), Thomas Allen (38th) and Bernard Stone (50th) -- are upset that Supervalu, Jewel's corporate parent, is closing a Jewel at 5129 W. Belmont two years after it was rebuilt. The problem, the company says, is that the store simply isn't drawing enough shoppers to make a profit. As other businesses do when they're faced with losing money, Supervalu decided to close rather than continue the losses.
In response, the aldermen are accusing the store of abandoning the community -- a community that apparently is already shopping elsewhere. And while they're curiously afraid to call for a boycott, they are urging Chicagoans not to shop at any Jewel.
Stone said Supervalu's decision is "not peculiar" to the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood and so the protest shouldn't be confined to it, either. Well, he's right about that. Money-losing stores can and do close all the time. And if we follow the aldermen's call for what amounts to a boycott, stores will be closing more often. That'll sure teach them to lose money in Chicago.
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