Jon, You've Driven a Wedge into My Heart

Well, I've had my first disappointment with Jon Tevlin and his new column at the Star Tribune. It's not a divorce; more of a bad argument, but nonetheless, I'm sad about it.

As you may have heard, the Trader Joe's grocery chain is in talks to open a store on Lyndale Avenue in South Minneapolis, about a block from the Wedge Co-op (the single-store co-op with the most members of any co-op in the U.S.).

I've never been in a Trader Joe's, but the German-owned chain is well-known for competing with locally owned natural food co-ops, often using its chain buying power to undercut the co-ops' prices on generally comparable foods (not sure how TJ's does on local and fair-trade foods, so that adjective "comparable" is used with a grain of salt).

A major aspect of the location battle arises from a zoning variance being sought by TJ's so they can sell their "Two Buck Chuck" wines and other alcohol. In Minnesota, the land of 10,000 restrictions on the sale of full-strength beer and wine in grocery stores, grocers need a separate entrance for their liquor stores, and they have to be at least 2,000 feet from other liquor-selling enterprises. The location TJ's has in mind is too close to Hum's Liquors, another neighborhood institution, and so it needs a zoning variance. This proximity has kept the Wedge from selling beer and wine as well. But TJ's thinks they can get the variance.

Enter today's column by Jon Tevlin, who, as it happens, lives right in the Wedge neighborhood. Much of the story merely recounts the issues, but the verbiage gets more critical after the term "political correctness" crops up:

...the Wedge Community Co-op [is] a neighborhood institution that likes to tell you that the apple you are buying was purchased from Ole down in Belle Plaine just this morning.

When a straightforward development story appeared in this paper last week, readers responded in the comments section as though Rush Limbaugh had crashed their hookah party.

Wow, let's unpack that, Jon. You seem to be implying that the Wedge's commitment to local foods and supporting local farmers is just a marketing scheme, rather than a reason for existing. And then you follow with a pretty nasty swipe, saying all Wedge shoppers are a bunch of drug users.

Later in the story, Jon gives us some quotes from trend watchers at Iconoculture and Mintel International. The latter commentator, named Marcia Morgelonsky, refers to TJ's as the "revenge of the Chicest" -- "the personification of what clean hippies want in a store." And then Marcia is quoted as saying about the Wedge, "I can almost smell the patchouli from here. I'm sneezing."

Geez, what decade is this? Has Marcia been in a co-op lately? This is the Wedge, which the Strib's own food writer, Rick Nelson, can't seem to go a week without praising.

Jon clearly has issues with an institution he perceives as "sanctimonious," where "shoppers sniff derisively at my cart because of a reckless disregard for my carbon footprint." Too bad if it's locally owned by people in the neighborhood, instead of a European billionaire.

I wonder which one of the stores keeps more of its shoppers' dollars in Minnesota? And which one will still be there to feed the neighborhood if the natural food trend peaks?

Anyway, it just makes me sad that a talented writer is using his abilities and his bully pulpit to belittle a homegrown institution.

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Update: After writing, I read the comment thread on the Strib website, which followed the paper's original story, and which Jon described as full of hookah-smoking Wedge supporters. (I didn't want to read it before writing because I find that the ugliness of the comments often takes the words right out of my mouth.)

Of the 72 comments on the thread, at least half would have to be considered anti-Wedge (mostly saying the overpriced Wedge and Hum's would lose in a fair competition with the wonderful Trader Joe's, ignoring the fact that TJ's off-sale liquor variance would mean unfair competition).

Those who were against TJ's move into the neighborhood mentioned the incredible traffic and parking problems that would result in an already-choked area, and some wondered why TJ's doesn't move somewhere a bit further south (Lake Street and south of 38th were mentioned). Others pointed out that TJ's is owned by a German millionaire (and were duly slapped by the anti-Wedge crowd for inciting class warfare).

Still others pointed out that the developer who owns the building where TJ's would be located has a couple dozen unsold condos on his hands, and he's planning to add even more, anchored by the TJ's store, and that this is not good for the neighborhood.

Sure sounds like a lot of hookah smoking to me, Jon.

My favorite comment was from a user going by "dillrod":

Food should be dirt cheap

And sprinkled with just a hint of E.Coli. And preferably shipped in from Guatemala. Whatever it takes to keep it cheap - get rid of costly regulation, grow it with peasant labor in Argentina. I'm an American who believes in the free market and true competition (provided the legislature grants me special variances none of my competitors get) and I deserve to have my food cheap. After all, this obesity can be costly to maintain with high food prices.