“The seriousness of this challenge is that we must find new solutions, renew our existing efforts to keep our communities safe and free of violence,” one councilwoman said.
Kroger is closing stores rather than giving workers an extra $4 in pandemic ‘hero pay’ Paulina Firozi Robert Gonzales, a Kroger employee for 26 years, addresses a crowd of supermarket workers gathered to in front of a Food 4 Less in Long Beach, California on Thursday. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) Two grocery stores in Southern California will shutter in April in response to a local “hero pay” measure requiring a $4-an-hour increase for grocery workers during the pandemic. Kroger, which owns more than a dozen grocery chains, announced this week that it would close a pair of Long Beach stores a Ralphs and a Food 4 Less specifically citing the ordinance the city’s mayor signed into law late last month. The city was the first in the state to introduce a measure requiring some grocery retailers to give workers a temporary hourly pay bump during the pandemic.
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The project will merge nine lots on Pacific Coast Highway from Cedar to Pacific avenues into two separate lots that would comprise about 1.6 acres. The two market-rate apartment buildings, both five stories, would together house 138 units, and would be connected by a pedestrian foot bridge over an existing alley. The project will also include roughly 25,000 square feet for commercial uses, which may include a grocery store.
The property currently houses a small market, a parking lot, a commercial building and was the former site of a motel. The project is located in an area “that can be described as an area in transition,” and the property itself has been marred by “graffiti, illegal dumping, and other crime,” according to a city staff report.
Killing off working class jobs in the name of social justice in Long Beach PERSPECTIVE
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Mary Zendejas is by all standards a strong community activist.
Her life story is inspiring. The daughter of immigrants who labored as a farm worker and a factory worker, she did not let getting polio as an infant stop her from achieving. Not only was she the first in her family to graduate from college but she has been a dynamic public servant through government service on boards such as Long Beach Transit and now the Long Beach City Council as well as numerous community organizations.