Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: February 15th, 2021, 1:13 am Shockingly, Irvine just matched Long Beach. Will be interesting to see if Kroger threatens to close one or more of its locations...
Regardless of political leanings this is going to happen in more and more cities. At this point the grocers should just implement it market wide in the CA region or at least across sub-regions like Los Angeles/Orange/San Diego. After all, they like to use government orders so they can have "uniform policies" across all stores right? Same reason they went along with the .10 bag fee and ban on thin plastic bags. Oh... that is only when there is a profit motive...
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by storewanderer »

Kroger actually filed 3 WARN Notices in Long Beach:

Food 4 Less - 62 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Ralphs - 94 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Food 4 Less - 156 employees "Layoff Type Unknown"

I wonder what the 156 employees one is for?
Is there an office or some kind of warehouse/plant?
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: February 26th, 2021, 7:21 pm Kroger actually filed 3 WARN Notices in Long Beach:

Food 4 Less - 62 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Ralphs - 94 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Food 4 Less - 156 employees "Layoff Type Unknown"

I wonder what the 156 employees one is for?
Is there an office or some kind of warehouse/plant?
Now I'm curious too. I don't think Kroger has any office or manufacturing facilities in Long Beach. Maybe they refer to the same store but 62 employees will be laid off and 156 will be reassigned to other locations?
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: February 27th, 2021, 3:43 pm
storewanderer wrote: February 26th, 2021, 7:21 pm Kroger actually filed 3 WARN Notices in Long Beach:

Food 4 Less - 62 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Ralphs - 94 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Food 4 Less - 156 employees "Layoff Type Unknown"

I wonder what the 156 employees one is for?
Is there an office or some kind of warehouse/plant?
Now I'm curious too. I don't think Kroger has any office or manufacturing facilities in Long Beach. Maybe they refer to the same store but 62 employees will be laid off and 156 will be reassigned to other locations?
Did not really make this observation before but 62+94=156. Too bad we can't see the whole detail of the notices.

Odd 156 gets listed under Food 4 Less...
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by CalItalian »

Today is the final day for both Ralphs and Food 4 Less closing locations in Long Beach.

KTLA 5 was able to go inside the Ralphs yesterday and take video inside the store which is very rare.

This Ralphs hasn't seen a remodel in quite sometime. Most stores have seen 2 remodels since this interior style.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/long-b ... -hero-pay/
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by CalItalian »

storewanderer wrote: February 26th, 2021, 7:21 pm Kroger actually filed 3 WARN Notices in Long Beach:

Food 4 Less - 62 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Ralphs - 94 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Food 4 Less - 156 employees "Layoff Type Unknown"

I wonder what the 156 employees one is for?
Is there an office or some kind of warehouse/plant?
Kroger doesn't have anything but store locations inside the City of Long Beach.
According to this video report from KCAL 9 yesterday (near end of report), all employees have been offered jobs at other Food 4 Less or Ralphs locations. https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2021/04 ... o-pay-law/
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by Bagels »

5 Ralphs/Food4Less closures so far this year -- I don't think they've had that many in the past few years combined.

The Ralphs off Culver Dr. in Irvine is scheduled for remodeling, and there's some rumors Kroger may temporarily close it to skirt the city's "hero pay" requirement. Would be a heavily foolish move after Albertsons closed its stores that were located one mile away in either direction.
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: April 17th, 2021, 7:39 pm 5 Ralphs/Food4Less closures so far this year -- I don't think they've had that many in the past few years combined.

The Ralphs off Culver Dr. in Irvine is scheduled for remodeling, and there's some rumors Kroger may temporarily close it to skirt the city's "hero pay" requirement. Would be a heavily foolish move after Albertsons closed its stores that were located one mile away in either direction.
Perhaps a continuous operation clause in their lease would prevent that sort of thing from happening. If such a clause exists.
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by veteran+ »

CalItalian wrote: April 17th, 2021, 11:05 am
storewanderer wrote: February 26th, 2021, 7:21 pm Kroger actually filed 3 WARN Notices in Long Beach:

Food 4 Less - 62 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Ralphs - 94 employees "Layoff Permanent"
Food 4 Less - 156 employees "Layoff Type Unknown"

I wonder what the 156 employees one is for?
Is there an office or some kind of warehouse/plant?
Kroger doesn't have anything but store locations inside the City of Long Beach.
According to this video report from KCAL 9 yesterday (near end of report), all employees have been offered jobs at other Food 4 Less or Ralphs locations. https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2021/04 ... o-pay-law/
Perhaps a typo? 62 PLUS 94 is 156?
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Re: Ralphs and Food 4 Less Closing in Long Beach over $4 per hour additional required "Hero Pay"

Post by ClownLoach »

ClownLoach wrote: February 1st, 2021, 10:53 pm I have a feeling for the Ralphs closing - this was a way to get out from under a marginal store that will be cannibalized by the new Amazon Fresh opening down the street. It is a very old and established neighborhood that used to have every brand in a short radius, Stater Bros, Albertsons, Pavilions, Fresh and Easy, and if you went further up the Los Coyotes Diagonal you hit the Towne Center with Walmart and Sam's. What is odd is that about 15 years ago they expanded and fully remodeled that store, adding about 10K Sq ft to it. The neighborhood is established and reasonably high income. I'm willing to bet it is the kind of neighborhood where residents will protest the closure, so with the City passing the "hero pay" initiative they got a built in excuse to close and someone else to point at (instead of the competition).

As far as the store out on Carson goes, that was a redevelopment deal of a former Pacific Theaters drive in I believe. Those redevelopment deals died out after Gov. Brown shut down Redevelopment Agencies. Almost all of the retail centers built or remodeled in the late 90s/early 00's in Long Beach were from these agencies and locked in below market rent for decades to encourage businesses to move there. The only reason a store wouldn't make money at such bargain basement rents would be if shrink was too high. This is the same reason they kept the problematic Marina location on PCH open instead of the 7th St one - long term low rent made it cheaper to close the higher volume store (now a Target express) and try to train the customers to find the other location.
Saw an article in the local small newspaper Grunion Gazette that the East Long Beach Ralphs that closed on the Los Coyotes Diagonal is going to be replaced by a senior assisted living facility. The article did not mention the Ralphs specifically and just gave the address, but a simple map search revealed it. The article made it sound like this has been in the works for a very long time - which makes sense considering that they had already cleared the lot behind the Ralphs at least 5 years ago. So Ralphs was leaving long before this wage deal. Makes me wonder if they knew there would be outrage in this particular neighborhood if they left under any circumstances - and despite the store being greatly expanded and remodeled about 15 years ago the tiny parking strip out front and lack of other retailers destined this store to close. I think they had a lot of customers who walked to this store for decades like it was a true neighborhood store but they were not enough to keep the lights on. Shortly after the major remodel and expansion (which wiped out at least half of the already too-small parking lot, I have no idea how it was approved) the Walmart at Long Beach Towne Center a mile east was one of the first SoCal stores to be fully remodeled and expanded to a full grocery supercenter. That surely doomed this Ralphs.
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