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Stuck in a Food Desert, Neighbors Are Building a Co-Op of Their Own

46 points by kawera 11y ago

Symbiote 11y ago
The UK has at least 4,000 co-operative food stores [1], most of which use a common brand even as they're run by different groups. (There are probably a few independent co-operatives, too.) I'm curious how they decide where to set up a new one. One of my relatives was a very strong supporter of the Co-op movement. He shopped there, used their bank, bought appliances and energy from them, took their package holidays, and left instructions in their will that he was to have a Co-op funeral. I was impressed that he stuck to his belief for his whole life. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Food
- kristofferR 11y ago
  One of the largest grocery chains in Norway, Sweden and Denmark is literally called Coop. They're really popular, they have over 1 million members in Norway and Denmark each (of a population of 5 million each) and 3 million in Sweden (of 9.5 million). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_Norden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_Norden
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    In neighbouring Finland, the largest grocery chain (S-ryhmä, using brand S-market) is also a co-operative. It is the merger result of the so called "red" and "white" co-op chains. S-ryhmä, together with the private chain of stores (K-ryhmä) are now seen as a politically corrupt duopoly which is responsible for the high price of food in the country. S-ryhmä "owns" many politicians and have a disproportionately large influence on zoning decisions made by municipalities so that competing stores face a barrier of entry to market as they cannot get a plot to build a shop. The locally emerging German giant, Lidl, is seen as a healthy influence here, bringing some competition to the market. So, all in all, co-ops are not inherently good. (Market share: S-shops have 46 %, K-shops have 33 %, Lidl has 8 %. Spar has all but disappeared. S-shops sell much of the same stuff as you find in a Co-op in Sweden, as they work together in purchasing logistics to achieve economies of scale.) (PS: If you see a shop marked with "KKK" in Finland, don't worry, it's not owned by the Ku Klux Klan. The K group just has different sizes of shops, small corner shops are "K", medium-sized markets are "KK" and hypermarkets are "KKK".)
- chrisseaton 11y ago
  Are they really co-operatives? I thought they were just regular supermarkets with a loyalty card and a political wing (!). Now I think about it, the fact that 24 of our MPs are members of a political party funded by a chain of shops is really weird.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    It's more than that, the Labour party is substantially funded by Lord Sainsbury. Most political parties are mostly funded by a few wealthy individuals. http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-18/just-76-people-made-41-of-political-donations/ http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-18/just-76-people-mad...
    - chrisseaton 11y ago
      Right but if it was literally the Tesco political party it would look weird wouldn't it? Isn't that what the co-op party is?
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    They are really co-operatives. You can join the biggest co-operative here [1]. I used to be a member (before I left the UK), and before the financial crisis I was sent a £10-or-so dividend each year. Some years there's been no dividend, when the money has been invested in the business. Members also vote for the board. This one is smaller, just for the East of England [2], but has paid a dividend this year. [1] http://www.co-operative.coop/membership/ http://www.co-operative.coop/membership/ [2] http://www.thenews.coop/95226/news/co-operatives/east-england-co-operative-announces-3-1m-dividend-payment/ http://www.thenews.coop/95226/news/co-operatives/east-englan...
    - chrisseaton 11y ago
      A dividend and voting rights - isn't that what you'd get with owning a share of Tesco which isn't a cooperative?
      - 11y ago
laen 11y ago
I'm glad the co-op is able to bring the community together, however, I am disturbed by the fact that like the title implies, residents were "stuck." Grocery stores were 2.5 miles away, but that was too far to get reasonably priced food and instead residents were gouged for $5 gallons of milk at the corner store. I fear that the $2 million being invested into the co-op could have been better used for infrastructure, not only enabling folks to journey to nearby grocery stores, but also opening up more employment opportunities.
- jacalata 11y ago
  Possibly, but it sounds like the money is coming from a ton of sources and it may not have been available for infrastructure - for instance, some of the money is a building improvement loan from the store owner.
- Squarel 11y ago
  There are many food deserts in the USA, and I suspect infrastructure is a large part of the problem https://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/fooddeserts.aspx https://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/fooddeserts.aspx
  - ctdonath 11y ago
    Many seem to misunderstand how large the USA is, how dispersed the population is, and how impractical it is to implement alternate infrastructure to solve the alleged problem. Walking/biking infrastructure is only feasible with high enough population densities; below some threshold, "car culture" absolutely dominates unless you're raising your own food. Grocery stores require a minimum number of recurring customers (and low enough crime rates); given a sufficiently dispersed population, the average viable distance between stores may very well exceed the distance criteria currently defining "food desert", even though people have moved to those areas knowing full well stores were far away. Following your link, I was surprised there's a "food desert" near my home; yes it may be a bit far from the nearest grocery, but if you live in this area you _must_ have a car and thus have no trouble reaching a ridiculous number of grocery stores.
vermontdevil 11y ago
This is how the Onion River Coop started (City Market) in Burlington. https://www.citymarket.coop/ https://www.citymarket.coop/
surge 11y ago
I'm sitting in Greensboro right now, this doesn't surprise me.
kaitai 11y ago
Co-ops are great! I am from a part of the US that has a lot, thanks to the trickle-down influence of all the left-wingers in northern Minnesota and upper Michigan (Wisconsin seems to have a different ethnic mix and lots of farmer co-ops but not as many buyer co-ops.) It seems to be a good time for co-ops again in some parts of the US: they're growing lots of places and they can be a good investment when they're expanding. Kudos to the Greensboro-ans, and I hope they see the power they can wield when they work together!
zschuessler 11y ago
Unrelated question - is anyone aware of why when you hear about cooperatives, it almost always pertains to food? I love the idea of having cooperatives for all types of business (welding shops, software engineering groups, etc etc). It's such a great business model: promotes passion in employees, business decisions are vetted by multiple people, and many great things for the community. I sometimes dream of starting a non-profit that pays for all the legal documents (the big one being bylaws and how it should operate under member management). So any Jane Doe not gifted in legalese could start a cooperative for her idea.
- gkop 11y ago
  Where are you located? In the US we also have agricultural supply co-ops, agricultural producers co-ops (dairy, produce, etc), housing co-ops, bicycle co-ops, electricity co-ops, credit unions, shops like REI, the Associated Press, community ISPs, community water associations, and others. Some of these types of co-ops are very popular in their respective sectors: electric coops are often the only choice for electricity in rural areas, many markets have a variety of credit unions to choose from, agricultural supply co-ops are universal in the countryside, etc..
- navait 11y ago
  If you only read mass media, most co-ops are too obscure for anything other than universal needs like food. My town for example, has a co-op printing shop and a co-op bookstore as well as a co-op grocery. A FOSS project could be seen as a co-op in some ways, too.
- kawera 11y ago
  There are people trying to spread the idea of cooperatives to "sharing economy" tech platforms.[1][2] [1] http://platformcoop.net/video-stream http://platformcoop.net/video-stream [2] http://americablog.com/2015/11/meet-the-activists-who-would-co-opt-the-tech-industry.html http://americablog.com/2015/11/meet-the-activists-who-would-... Hopefully some discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615241
- xj9 11y ago
  We are still experimenting (though we are profitable), but my startup[1] is working on an open source toolkit for building cooperative businesses. Our eventual goals are to build a diverse network of coops across multiple industries and to lower the barrier of entry for being a business owner/co-owner. I would love to see coops everywhere! Unfortunately they can be a bit complicated to set up and operate. I really hope we can change that. [1]: https://infinite.ai https://infinite.ai
nemo44x 11y ago
I could be totally off base here, but couldn't people without access to a good grocery store just buy their groceries online and have them delivered? Does it cost more to have groceries shipped? I understand Co-Op's offer more cheaply priced groceries and that's a great community project so I'm not suggesting Co-Op's have no point. They're great things. I'm just wondering what the difference between big box grocery stores and online grocery delivery is?
- dionidium 11y ago
  couldn't people without access to a good grocery store just buy their groceries online and have them delivered Of course they could, but those who live in food deserts aren't those who would (at this time, at least).
- acketon 11y ago
  Online grocery delivery is still only in limited, typically wealthy areas and is still more expensive. I think it also caters to people buying higher priced items such as more expensive meat or seafood, where the cost of delivering it is a small percentage of the value. Let's assume for a box filled with $5 and $10 items such as chicken, steak, coffee, etc that the delivery cost is $0.25 or $0.50 per item... that might not be a big deal for people here. But say you're buying boxes of $1.00 Rice in a box, or cans of beans and the cost of delivery makes a bigger difference in your cost per meal. Items sold in online grocery services are also marked up higher than they are in stores, for example: "Celeste Frozen Pizza is 99-cents at ShopRite, $1.29 at Peapod and a whopping $2.69 at FreshDirect"(source: http://6abc.com/archive/8983520/ http://6abc.com/archive/8983520/) It also assumes that people can be home for the delivery, neighborhoods like this might not be the type where you want $50 to $100 worth of groceries sitting outside your apartment building. Making the actual payment is another thing to consider. Not everyone has credit or debit cards. It looks like online grocery sellers also can't legally accept EBT, Wic or other food programs for online grocery delivery: https://www.facebook.com/notes/peapod-delivers/why-we-dont-accept-ebt-as-a-form-of-payment/425235895574 https://www.facebook.com/notes/peapod-delivers/why-we-dont-a... Online groceries require planning, time, and at least for the foreseeable future will come at a premium cost. It's great for certain people but I hope it does not become the only option for groceries.
Agustus 11y ago
Here is a great contrarian point to the CityLab discovery about induced demand. An individual is unwilling to walk 2 miles to the nearest grocery store, the solution would be to take a bus, however a route does not exist the ideal solution would be a car. However, entrepreneurs stepped in and identified what the non-car community would pay for things and still turn a profit: $5 for milk from readily available stores. As an aside, how is this any different from Walgreens/CVS' model of having multiple convenient locations, but charge a larger premium. The idea of a food desert is non-sense as people have access to food, they just want cheaper prices.
- kaitai 11y ago
  I think you're missing some supply and demand calculations here. Since many people can't afford $5 for the milk, don't have a car, can't walk the 2 miles back & forth with 4 kids because they don't have enough stroller space for 2 and can't carry the purchased food and the kid at the same time, they just don't buy the milk. They buy the Coke for $0.99 at the gas station. If you're poor of course you want cheaper prices! "Let them eat cake..."
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  Access to unaffordable food isn't access.
- dajohnson89 11y ago
  You don't seriously think that a drug store suffices as a food source.
fiatmoney 11y ago
"A mile or more from a grocery store" isn't that terribly far - plenty of suburbs, to say nothing of rural areas, meet that criteria.
- tonyarkles 11y ago
  Now imagine that you're living paycheque to paycheque, barely making ends meet, and your car breaks down and you can't afford to fix it until next month. How do you buy groceries? You walk over to the corner store talked about in the article and pay $5 for a gallon of milk. Speaking from my own (not super broad) experience, people who live in suburbs are often better off than the people that this article is talking about. Having to drive to get groceries, while necessary, isn't the same kind of hardship. And most of the rural folks I know have two things that help: a huge pantry down in the basement full of canned goods and a deep-freeze or two full of frozen food, and a good enough relationship with their neighbours that they could get a ride or tow into town to get their car fixed. It's weird in my city. There's a pile of apartment buildings right downtown, but there hasn't been a grocery store there for probably 10-15 years. I lived there when I was a student (it was a short-ish walk to the university), the only time I managed to actually buy groceries and cook was when my roommate and I happened to be home at the same time and we could use her car (when it was working). Otherwise, the easiest food to get was Subway which was less than a block away, or eat on Campus before I came home. Transit was a waste of time, it'd take over an hour each way to get to a grocery store. It was pretty much the definition of a Food Desert, and it sucked.
sbuccini 11y ago
This article won't make sense if you're not from the area. If you live in Greensboro, you need a car to be effective. The structure of the city (suburban sprawl with few boulevards) means that public transit is slow and unreliable. Also, this is more than just a grocery store. It will be the anchor of a strip mall that has been decaying ever since the Winn-Dixie left. It is a way to organize and galvanize neighborhood members. It will provide good jobs to those in the area. These intangibles go far beyond the small profit the store will make.

46 points by kawera 11y ago

The UK has at least 4,000 co-operative food stores [1], most of which use a common brand even as they're run by different groups. (There are probably a few independent co-operatives, too.) I'm curious how they decide where to set up a new one. One of my relatives was a very strong supporter of the Co-op movement. He shopped there, used their bank, bought appliances and energy from them, took their package holidays, and left instructions in their will that he was to have a Co-op funeral. I was impressed that he stuck to his belief for his whole life. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Food

kristofferR 11y ago
One of the largest grocery chains in Norway, Sweden and Denmark is literally called Coop. They're really popular, they have over 1 million members in Norway and Denmark each (of a population of 5 million each) and 3 million in Sweden (of 9.5 million). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_Norden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_Norden
- ptaipale 11y ago
  In neighbouring Finland, the largest grocery chain (S-ryhmä, using brand S-market) is also a co-operative. It is the merger result of the so called "red" and "white" co-op chains. S-ryhmä, together with the private chain of stores (K-ryhmä) are now seen as a politically corrupt duopoly which is responsible for the high price of food in the country. S-ryhmä "owns" many politicians and have a disproportionately large influence on zoning decisions made by municipalities so that competing stores face a barrier of entry to market as they cannot get a plot to build a shop. The locally emerging German giant, Lidl, is seen as a healthy influence here, bringing some competition to the market. So, all in all, co-ops are not inherently good. (Market share: S-shops have 46 %, K-shops have 33 %, Lidl has 8 %. Spar has all but disappeared. S-shops sell much of the same stuff as you find in a Co-op in Sweden, as they work together in purchasing logistics to achieve economies of scale.) (PS: If you see a shop marked with "KKK" in Finland, don't worry, it's not owned by the Ku Klux Klan. The K group just has different sizes of shops, small corner shops are "K", medium-sized markets are "KK" and hypermarkets are "KKK".)
chrisseaton 11y ago
Are they really co-operatives? I thought they were just regular supermarkets with a loyalty card and a political wing (!). Now I think about it, the fact that 24 of our MPs are members of a political party funded by a chain of shops is really weird.
- pjc50 11y ago
  It's more than that, the Labour party is substantially funded by Lord Sainsbury. Most political parties are mostly funded by a few wealthy individuals. http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-18/just-76-people-made-41-of-political-donations/ http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-18/just-76-people-mad...
  - chrisseaton 11y ago
    Right but if it was literally the Tesco political party it would look weird wouldn't it? Isn't that what the co-op party is?
- Symbiote 11y ago
  They are really co-operatives. You can join the biggest co-operative here [1]. I used to be a member (before I left the UK), and before the financial crisis I was sent a £10-or-so dividend each year. Some years there's been no dividend, when the money has been invested in the business. Members also vote for the board. This one is smaller, just for the East of England [2], but has paid a dividend this year. [1] http://www.co-operative.coop/membership/ http://www.co-operative.coop/membership/ [2] http://www.thenews.coop/95226/news/co-operatives/east-england-co-operative-announces-3-1m-dividend-payment/ http://www.thenews.coop/95226/news/co-operatives/east-englan...
  - chrisseaton 11y ago
    A dividend and voting rights - isn't that what you'd get with owning a share of Tesco which isn't a cooperative?
    - 11y ago

laen 11y ago

I'm glad the co-op is able to bring the community together, however, I am disturbed by the fact that like the title implies, residents were "stuck." Grocery stores were 2.5 miles away, but that was too far to get reasonably priced food and instead residents were gouged for $5 gallons of milk at the corner store. I fear that the $2 million being invested into the co-op could have been better used for infrastructure, not only enabling folks to journey to nearby grocery stores, but also opening up more employment opportunities.

jacalata 11y ago
Possibly, but it sounds like the money is coming from a ton of sources and it may not have been available for infrastructure - for instance, some of the money is a building improvement loan from the store owner.
Squarel 11y ago
There are many food deserts in the USA, and I suspect infrastructure is a large part of the problem https://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/fooddeserts.aspx https://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/fooddeserts.aspx
- ctdonath 11y ago
  Many seem to misunderstand how large the USA is, how dispersed the population is, and how impractical it is to implement alternate infrastructure to solve the alleged problem. Walking/biking infrastructure is only feasible with high enough population densities; below some threshold, "car culture" absolutely dominates unless you're raising your own food. Grocery stores require a minimum number of recurring customers (and low enough crime rates); given a sufficiently dispersed population, the average viable distance between stores may very well exceed the distance criteria currently defining "food desert", even though people have moved to those areas knowing full well stores were far away. Following your link, I was surprised there's a "food desert" near my home; yes it may be a bit far from the nearest grocery, but if you live in this area you _must_ have a car and thus have no trouble reaching a ridiculous number of grocery stores.

vermontdevil 11y ago

This is how the Onion River Coop started (City Market) in Burlington. https://www.citymarket.coop/ https://www.citymarket.coop/

surge 11y ago

I'm sitting in Greensboro right now, this doesn't surprise me.

kaitai 11y ago

Co-ops are great! I am from a part of the US that has a lot, thanks to the trickle-down influence of all the left-wingers in northern Minnesota and upper Michigan (Wisconsin seems to have a different ethnic mix and lots of farmer co-ops but not as many buyer co-ops.) It seems to be a good time for co-ops again in some parts of the US: they're growing lots of places and they can be a good investment when they're expanding. Kudos to the Greensboro-ans, and I hope they see the power they can wield when they work together!

zschuessler 11y ago

Unrelated question - is anyone aware of why when you hear about cooperatives, it almost always pertains to food? I love the idea of having cooperatives for all types of business (welding shops, software engineering groups, etc etc). It's such a great business model: promotes passion in employees, business decisions are vetted by multiple people, and many great things for the community. I sometimes dream of starting a non-profit that pays for all the legal documents (the big one being bylaws and how it should operate under member management). So any Jane Doe not gifted in legalese could start a cooperative for her idea.

gkop 11y ago
Where are you located? In the US we also have agricultural supply co-ops, agricultural producers co-ops (dairy, produce, etc), housing co-ops, bicycle co-ops, electricity co-ops, credit unions, shops like REI, the Associated Press, community ISPs, community water associations, and others. Some of these types of co-ops are very popular in their respective sectors: electric coops are often the only choice for electricity in rural areas, many markets have a variety of credit unions to choose from, agricultural supply co-ops are universal in the countryside, etc..
navait 11y ago
If you only read mass media, most co-ops are too obscure for anything other than universal needs like food. My town for example, has a co-op printing shop and a co-op bookstore as well as a co-op grocery. A FOSS project could be seen as a co-op in some ways, too.
kawera 11y ago
There are people trying to spread the idea of cooperatives to "sharing economy" tech platforms.[1][2] [1] http://platformcoop.net/video-stream http://platformcoop.net/video-stream [2] http://americablog.com/2015/11/meet-the-activists-who-would-co-opt-the-tech-industry.html http://americablog.com/2015/11/meet-the-activists-who-would-... Hopefully some discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615241
xj9 11y ago
We are still experimenting (though we are profitable), but my startup[1] is working on an open source toolkit for building cooperative businesses. Our eventual goals are to build a diverse network of coops across multiple industries and to lower the barrier of entry for being a business owner/co-owner. I would love to see coops everywhere! Unfortunately they can be a bit complicated to set up and operate. I really hope we can change that. [1]: https://infinite.ai https://infinite.ai

nemo44x 11y ago

I could be totally off base here, but couldn't people without access to a good grocery store just buy their groceries online and have them delivered? Does it cost more to have groceries shipped? I understand Co-Op's offer more cheaply priced groceries and that's a great community project so I'm not suggesting Co-Op's have no point. They're great things. I'm just wondering what the difference between big box grocery stores and online grocery delivery is?

dionidium 11y ago
couldn't people without access to a good grocery store just buy their groceries online and have them delivered Of course they could, but those who live in food deserts aren't those who would (at this time, at least).
acketon 11y ago
Online grocery delivery is still only in limited, typically wealthy areas and is still more expensive. I think it also caters to people buying higher priced items such as more expensive meat or seafood, where the cost of delivering it is a small percentage of the value. Let's assume for a box filled with $5 and $10 items such as chicken, steak, coffee, etc that the delivery cost is $0.25 or $0.50 per item... that might not be a big deal for people here. But say you're buying boxes of $1.00 Rice in a box, or cans of beans and the cost of delivery makes a bigger difference in your cost per meal. Items sold in online grocery services are also marked up higher than they are in stores, for example: "Celeste Frozen Pizza is 99-cents at ShopRite, $1.29 at Peapod and a whopping $2.69 at FreshDirect"(source: http://6abc.com/archive/8983520/ http://6abc.com/archive/8983520/) It also assumes that people can be home for the delivery, neighborhoods like this might not be the type where you want $50 to $100 worth of groceries sitting outside your apartment building. Making the actual payment is another thing to consider. Not everyone has credit or debit cards. It looks like online grocery sellers also can't legally accept EBT, Wic or other food programs for online grocery delivery: https://www.facebook.com/notes/peapod-delivers/why-we-dont-accept-ebt-as-a-form-of-payment/425235895574 https://www.facebook.com/notes/peapod-delivers/why-we-dont-a... Online groceries require planning, time, and at least for the foreseeable future will come at a premium cost. It's great for certain people but I hope it does not become the only option for groceries.

Agustus 11y ago

Here is a great contrarian point to the CityLab discovery about induced demand. An individual is unwilling to walk 2 miles to the nearest grocery store, the solution would be to take a bus, however a route does not exist the ideal solution would be a car. However, entrepreneurs stepped in and identified what the non-car community would pay for things and still turn a profit: $5 for milk from readily available stores. As an aside, how is this any different from Walgreens/CVS' model of having multiple convenient locations, but charge a larger premium. The idea of a food desert is non-sense as people have access to food, they just want cheaper prices.

kaitai 11y ago
I think you're missing some supply and demand calculations here. Since many people can't afford $5 for the milk, don't have a car, can't walk the 2 miles back & forth with 4 kids because they don't have enough stroller space for 2 and can't carry the purchased food and the kid at the same time, they just don't buy the milk. They buy the Coke for $0.99 at the gas station. If you're poor of course you want cheaper prices! "Let them eat cake..."
ceejayoz 11y ago
Access to unaffordable food isn't access.
dajohnson89 11y ago
You don't seriously think that a drug store suffices as a food source.

fiatmoney 11y ago

"A mile or more from a grocery store" isn't that terribly far - plenty of suburbs, to say nothing of rural areas, meet that criteria.

tonyarkles 11y ago
Now imagine that you're living paycheque to paycheque, barely making ends meet, and your car breaks down and you can't afford to fix it until next month. How do you buy groceries? You walk over to the corner store talked about in the article and pay $5 for a gallon of milk. Speaking from my own (not super broad) experience, people who live in suburbs are often better off than the people that this article is talking about. Having to drive to get groceries, while necessary, isn't the same kind of hardship. And most of the rural folks I know have two things that help: a huge pantry down in the basement full of canned goods and a deep-freeze or two full of frozen food, and a good enough relationship with their neighbours that they could get a ride or tow into town to get their car fixed. It's weird in my city. There's a pile of apartment buildings right downtown, but there hasn't been a grocery store there for probably 10-15 years. I lived there when I was a student (it was a short-ish walk to the university), the only time I managed to actually buy groceries and cook was when my roommate and I happened to be home at the same time and we could use her car (when it was working). Otherwise, the easiest food to get was Subway which was less than a block away, or eat on Campus before I came home. Transit was a waste of time, it'd take over an hour each way to get to a grocery store. It was pretty much the definition of a Food Desert, and it sucked.

sbuccini 11y ago

This article won't make sense if you're not from the area. If you live in Greensboro, you need a car to be effective. The structure of the city (suburban sprawl with few boulevards) means that public transit is slow and unreliable. Also, this is more than just a grocery store. It will be the anchor of a strip mall that has been decaying ever since the Winn-Dixie left. It is a way to organize and galvanize neighborhood members. It will provide good jobs to those in the area. These intangibles go far beyond the small profit the store will make.