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Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

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Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#41

Post by encomiast »

darth_avocado wrote: post #22

I’m sorry but isn’t this on the town itself? If land use restrictions are preventing them from having a second grocery store, then change the law. Monopolies will act like monopolies and its up to the local government to do something about it.

Reading the article it doesn't sound like these are land use restrictions imposed by the town that they can simply change. Rather these are contract clauses in deeds or the practice of companies leasing the vacant space where another store might go. My hunch is a that a small town isn't equipped for the lawsuit that happens if they tell a company like Alberstons that they are not allowed to lease vacant land in their town on the theory that a competing chain might want to build there.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#42

Post by falcolas »

h0l0cube wrote: post #30
carom wrote: post #12

>In Mammoth Lakes, there are two old K-Mart lots that could easily welcome competitive grocery stores This sounds like Bishop, not Mammoth. Bishop is 30 minutes outside of Mammoth and is a little bit bigger. Mammoth does have two grocery stores now, for years it was just a Vons and now there is a Grocery Outlet as well. Bishop has a Vons, Grocery Outlet, and a Smart and Final. Both cities have some hispanic grocers t…

In the same paragraph: > Vons started leasing one plot in 2019 when K-Mart went under, “holding the space hostage.” It now leases the other as well.

Bozeman MT also has a huge lot being completely unused because it was a former K-Mart. And Bozeman is growing like nuts, I can't imagine there's nobody who wants the space.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#43

Post by Eextra953 »

What kind of calculation goes into leasing something for 750k/year to keep competition away? Is it as simple as thinking that a competing store would cost them 750k/year or do other factors go into this?

Also, the mayor expressed his frustration but there is a lot that local government can do to combat this kind of thing. Even something as simple as getting a weekly farmers market started or actively looking for small time grocers would help. I think the mayor doesn't want to push too hard for whatever reason.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#44

Post by [deleted] »

cobertos wrote: post #33
darth_avocado wrote: post #22

I’m sorry but isn’t this on the town itself? If land use restrictions are preventing them from having a second grocery store, then change the law. Monopolies will act like monopolies and its up to the local government to do something about it.

The use restriction is in a deed covenant, not a part of the zoning ordinances. Im not actually quite sure how those get altered/taken out of the deed other than expiry

[deleted]

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#45

Post by fzeroracer »

aliasxneo wrote: post #6
forgetfreeman wrote: post #2

Behold: the Market doing Market shit.

Do you mean free market? Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market. In which case, your comment makes no sense.

Land use restrictions are purely in the spirit of the free market. It's an agreement between two individuals or corporations on land usage as part of the sales agreement.

Imposing a restriction on this means that the government is saying that these two individuals cannot conduct private business in a certain way.

Now do I agree with this? Hell no, land use restrictions should be legislated into oblivion and companies should not be able to make flagrant abuse of monopolistic behavior to destroy essential businesses for towns. But this is as pure of a free market interaction as you can get, with all the downsides.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#46

Post by 015a »

While holding a lease on prime competitor real estate seemingly strictly for the purpose of stopping competition from moving in feels very, very scummy; it also feels like it isn't the whole story. Competitors don't need to move in to the vacant K-mart. There are always other options; those "other options" is how 99% of grocery stores get opened, Walmarts don't "move in" to old K-marts by-and-large. Is the local government unwilling to rezone?

There's probably something else going on. My first suspicion is that the story is simply wrong: generally, when you read something that's so comic-book-villain evil, something about the story is being misrepresented or is just wrong. It would not surprise me to hear if this Vons actually did have competition that the author conveniently missed, forgot about, etc.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#47

Post by hmottestad »

gruez wrote: post #31
akira2501 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny to see criticism of Matt Stoller's points boil down to whataboutism. It's okay to be right one one thing and wrong on another. It doesn't invalidate anything.

>It's funny to see criticism of Matt Stoller's points boil down to whataboutism. That's not whataboutism, it's inconsistency, and it's worth pointing out. >It's okay to be right one one thing and wrong on another. but wouldn't you rather be right on both? "but I'm at least right on one" seems like a pretty low bar to aim for. >It doesn't invalidate anything. Did OP imply otherwise?

I personally felt that the use of the phrasing «it’s funny» implied that the comment was some kind of criticism. In both comments.

I understand whataboutism as bringing up something that is somewhat related in order to shift the focus away from the original topic.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#48

Post by bluGill »

gruez wrote: post #36
TulliusCicero wrote: post #25

These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal. It's basically a corporation trying to act as a pseudogovernment, enforcing regulations on land that they no longer own themselves. One could argue that HOAs are kind of a similar issue, acting like a pseudogovernment, with restrictions on housing passing on down indefinitely, even to new owners who may not have wanted to agree to them (but with housing being as…

How are HOAs any different than a city council, except on a smaller scale? In both cases they're democratically elected, and they enact restrictions that can't be opted out of.

HOAs often enacts rules that would be illegal for a city council to enact. (between the US constitution, US federal laws, State constitution, State laws, and county laws there are often strict limits to what can be done that HOAs are not effected by). Courts have reigned in some of that, but there is still a lot that a HOA can do.

HOAs also tend to be too small - it is hard to find someone qualified who wants to be in charge and so they are often forced to accept some busybody nobody really likes because at least that person wants the job. As you get larger you get a choice of qualified people for the job (but of course also large enough for corruption to take effect).

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#49

Post by lotsofpulp »

falcolas wrote: post #29
lotsofpulp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Behold: Market participants using government to disable other market participants.

In this case since it's deed restrictions as part of the land/building sale it's not the government enforcing these restrictions, it's plain old contract law.

The government enforces all contracts, by having the power to impose the consequences of violating contracts. In this case, the government is not doing its anti trust duties resulting in harm to the public.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#50

Post by singleshot_ »

aliasxneo wrote: post #6
forgetfreeman wrote: post #2

Behold: the Market doing Market shit.

Do you mean free market? Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market. In which case, your comment makes no sense.

You were (and are) free to either buy or not buy land encumbered by a restrictive covenant, and of course the price of the parcel is influenced accordingly.
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