It's Andy Fish!

A recent article I read stated that Worcester is underserved by supermarkets. That was the focus, there are not enough supermarkets for a city of 280,000 people.

I found this a bit funny because off the top of my head I could think of FOURTEEN markets around me and down to the bottom of the city. I think if I really put my propeller hat on I could come up with another 10.

The article pushed how Lincoln Street had lost Stop & Shop and Cambridge Street had lost Price Chopper. Now in the Cambridge Street Price Chopper case Asian Supermarket is less than a half mile from where Chopper was, and Shaws remains about ¾ of a mile away. As for Lincoln Street there is still an Aldi up there. The gist of this writers article was that Worcester’s Commercial tax rate is causing this crisis. The city council recently voted (rightly so) to increase the commercial rate and lower the residential rate. Yeah, we taxpayers want to pay less for the bad service we receive and the commercial rate does nothing to change the fact that accoring to the American Grocer’s Association Central Ma is one of the hottest areas in the Grocery business.

If this writer had done just the slightest bit of research he might have learned something– markets flourish except where crime is an issue. As the former manager of one of the stores at Lincoln Plaze I can tell you theft was a major component of our everyday operations. We would stop shoplifter’s 5-6 times a DAY. In the grocery business you run on such a small margin that heavy theft is enough to put you under.

So once again, let’s ignore the real issue and just throw some more tax money at it– because that will fix it, right?

I reached out to the reporter and told him my expertise on the matter– not surprisingly his answer was “that was not the angle I was going for”– did he mean The Truth?