Food 4 Less, Vons confirm LV store closures

Jennifer Shubinski

Friday, Aug. 13, 2004 | 10:52 a.m.

On the same day Vons confirmed it would close three Las Vegas grocery stores by the end of this year, Food 4 Less said Thursday it plans to close a local store as well.

Some grocery stores with union labor say it is becoming increasingly difficult to compete as more stores enter Southern Nevada, many of which are nonunion shops.

Traditional grocery stores have struggled as Wal-Mart continues to expand and as a new Wal-Mart concept is set to open in the valley in the near future.

Wal-Mart's Neighborhood Market is a smaller low price grocery store targeting convenience shoppers. Wal-Mart, which as seven super centers in the valley, plans to open five Neighborhood Markets in the Las Vegas area. Two are now under construction, one in the southwest part of the valley and another in North Las Vegas.

"In the old days we only had to think of an Albertsons. Now there is Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Wild Oats, Wal-Mart, Costco and Target (super centers), so we are seeing competition where we didn't used to see competition. It makes it very difficult to operate a store now days," said Sandra Calderon, Vons spokeswoman. "Also, because Wal-Mart is a nonunion operator and it is able to have much lower costs. Where they can survive in an area, we can't compete."

Vons confirmed Thursday it is closing three stores in the Las Vegas area.

The stores that will close are:

"In Las Vegas, the employees are fortunate that Las Vegas is so big now, we can easily locate every employee to another Vons location."

Michael Gittings, secretary-treasurer of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 711, said the store closings shouldn't have much affect on union members.

"Normally (that's) what happens from time to time, the grocery companies do close stores," he said. "(But) they open more stores than they close."

The closing of the store at Owens and H caused a public outcry Thursday as Las Vegas Councilman Lawrence Weekly and community activists said the closure would be devastating for West Las Vegas, which has struggled for years to draw in businesses and redevelop the area. Neighbors also said there is no nearby grocery store and they would have to drive several miles to the nearest store.

"I come here often," said Norma Cherry, who has lived in the West Las Vegas area for more than 40 years. "I think it's a bad deal for us. The closest one is at MLK (Martin Luther King Boulevard) and Craig Road."

Calderon said Vons does not target certain areas of town, or even areas of the country, when making the decision to close stores.

"Each one has a different reason. In general when we close a store it's because it's under-performing, and that was the case with the one on Owens," she said. "We've been evaluating it for a number of years now, this was not a decision that was made overnight."

Officials with Pleasanton, Calif.-based Safeway, which owns Vons grocery stores, also are closing three stores in California.

"We weren't targeting any store. If a store is performing well, we wouldn't need to close it," Calderon said. "It's business sense."

Food 4 Less, a division of The Kroger Co., announced Thursday it will close a store at 2475 E. Tropicana at Eastern Avenue. No closing date has been set.

"Nobody is being laid off, they will be transferred to other stores in Clark County," Terry O'Neil, a spokesman, said. "It's bad news we have to close the store, but at least 60 to 70 employees will retain their jobs at other supermarkets."

The store was one of eight Food 4 Less acquired when Raley's in Las Vegas sold or closed 18 stores in 2002 after only three years in the market. Food 4 Less has 16 stores in Clark County.

"We acquired the store with lots of optimism, and thought we'd be able to attract customers with our low prices and high quality goods, but we were never able to attract a significant amount of business," O'Neil said.

O'Neil said the company understands that closing a store -- and leaving a large vacant space behind -- can cause hardships in the surrounding community.

"Our decision was to close this store only after a lot of study, a lot of discussion and only after all other options were exhausted," he said. "We will be looking for somebody to replace us. No community wants an empty building in their midst."

Smith's Food & Drug closed a store May 11, at 4821 W. Craig, a former Raley's that had been reopened as a Smith's, but opened a new store blocks away at Ann Road and Decatur Boulevard that same day.

The company also closed a store at U.S. 95 and Jones Boulevard in December, and transferred about 60 employees to a nearby Smith's and other grocery stores around the valley.

Kroger Co., based in Cincinnati, is Smith's parent company.

As part of that closure, a former Raley's supermarket at Vegas Drive and Jones received a $2.1 million facelift and was reopened the next day. The former Raley's at Vegas Drive was acquired during Smith's purchase of 10 of the Raley's supermarkets in 2002. At that time, seven of those stores, including the one at Vegas and Jones, were reopened as Smith's. Three were closed and remain vacant. The former Smith's at U.S. 95 and Jones also remains vacant.

Spokesman Marsha Gilford said while some stores have closed, Smith's continues to expand in the Las Vegas Valley. Currently the company has 27 stores and about 2,500 employees.

The company plans to open a Smith's at Tropicana and Hualapai Way this winter and has completed the remodeling of two stores, one at Rampart and Lake Mead boulevards and one at Maryland Parkway and Sahara Avenue.

"(This year) has been a successful year of development and remodeling in what we feel is a very important market," Gilford said. "We are committed to our success in Las Vegas, it is a great market for us to serve."

Food 4 Less doesn't have any plans to open any new stores in the next six to eight months, but O'Neil said the company is always looking for new locations.

"Las Vegas is a rapidly growing area, we've found a home there and we're in Las Vegas to stay," he said.

And Vons, despite Thursday's announcement of three store closings, said it plans to expand in the valley, but officials declined to say where.

Albertsons officials declined to discuss any past or future store closings or openings. But Albertsons, too, apparently has had its share of trouble dealing with the nonunion Wal-Mart grocery operations.

An Albertsons at Decatur and Charleston boulevards closed in 2002 -- about the same time a Wal-Mart super center opened across the street.