King Neighborhood Association

SAFEWAY ALCOHOL LICENSE REVIEW

NECN BOARD ENDORSEMENT WITHDRAWN

The Skanner newspaper's current lead story revealed Safeway store #509 on NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard at Ainsworth Street sold alcohol to minors working with the Portland Police Bureau's NE Precinct five times in a 15 month period in 1998-1999.

Gary Oxley, Safeway's Salem lobbyist, led a team of four other company employees to represent the 1400-store multinational corporation at the monthly board meeting of the NE Coalition of Neighborhoods, with 38 residents and two city staffers present. Oxley led by stating "The future of the store is in serious jeapordy", and hinted at a linkage between the store's possible loss of its alcohol sales license and the store's closing.

NE NEIGHBORS REACT TO SAFEWAY

One resident replied to such suggestions, which were heard several times, with "If you want our support to keep your license, don't threaten to leave if you lose your license; otherwise, don't let the door hit you in the .... on your way out." Edna Robinson, representative of the Black United Front, concurred "If you want to move, move; our store's been used as a dumping ground".

District Manager Mark Degregorio said three of the five checkers involved were long-time experienced employees, with an average of 17 years service. He confirmed some of the sales were deliberate, not accidental. He also had not explanation as to why, despite increased surveillance on the Jantzen Beach and Lloyd Center stores, why those stores only had one such violation.

Although the grocery industry pioneered the use of bar code and Safeway uses bar code readers to scan customers' "Safeway Club" sales tracking and discount cards, Safeway does not use those same bar code readers to read the bar code on the back of the driver's license to confirm the age of alcohol buyers. Lobbyist Oxley confirmed Safeway has not added the software to do so, even though such software has been written (by an Oregon liquor store owner when his store failed an inspection) and the same bar code technology is used on both the Safeway Club Card and Oregon drivers' licenses. The process Safeway uses instead requires the checker to manually type in the date of birth from the drivers' license, which opens the process up to three kinds of errors not possible with bar code reading: A clerk's inadvertant error in punching in the information, a clerk's inadvertant error in reading the fine print on the license and a clerk deliberately punching in the wrong date.

Degregorio added although the store traffic is high, this is the least profitable store in his district., although he had no answer when asked for the key retailing benchmark, profit per square foot. When members of NECN suggested he had low profit because of long checkout lines, dirt, narrow aisles, bad lighting, poor appearance and other problems, he did not disagree. He made no committment on a timetable to remodel the store, as those decisions are made in California, and also had no response when asked why Safeway was cited for 131 criminal incidents as per a Willamette Week lead news story "...the Safeway at MLK and Ainsworth, which in 1998 was cited for 131 incidents, including armed robbery, aggravated assault with a knife and heroin possession." .

Sheila Holden of the NE Business Association noted in previous discussions with Safeway, Safeway intimated that the MLK/Ainsworth store would not be the last to be remodeled. When asked why other stores in the district were put first for expansion and remodeling, Bridget Flanagan, PR expert for Safeway, noted the store only became profitable two to three years ago.

EARLY ENDORSEMENT NOW REVERSED

At the end of the meeting, the NECN Board voted with no opposition for representatives of King and other neighborhoods to meet with Safeway decision makers to determine whether to confirm Portland Police Bureau's recommendation to withdraw the alcohol sales license from Safeway. This reverses the earlier unilateral action of Board President Willie Brown in his Jan. 14th letter to Portland Mayor Vera Katz supporting Safeway and criticizing the actions of the Portland Police Bureau.

Safeway's annual license expired at the first of the year. They have been operating since under a letter of authority to sell alcohol.

Email us
kna-subscribe@onelist.com