This is a fairly catastrophic situation for the Route 66 town of Needles, Calif. I’ll let an excerpt of a report from the Whittier Daily News explain:
Bashas’, the only grocery store in this tiny Colorado River town on old Route 66 is closing for good in six weeks. Its owners made the announcement this week, and it has left the townspeople stunned and frightened.
The nearest market is 27 miles away in Arizona, and many of the retirees in Needles don’t drive anymore.
It’s even worse for the mothers in town who are receiving aid under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program — they’ll need to travel nearly 100 miles to Blythe to use their WIC vouchers.
The big problem is the Brashas’ chain has been in bankruptcy since July and that it will have to close about 10 stores, including Needles’, which is right on the main alignment of Route 66.
Needles has an estimated population of more than 5,000. I’ve never heard of a town that large not having a grocery store.
The city council is trying to figure out how to keep the Brashas’ store in the town. According to the report, the planned closing took city officials by surprise.
The huge problem is that the WIC cards cannot be used out-of-state. The closest grocery outside of Needles is in the southern Bullhead City, Ariz., which is about 20 miles away. If the city or other parties cannot keep a grocery open in Needles, it would seem prudent to waive the in-state WIC requirements for those residents. According to a USDA official, there is precedent for such a waiver, but it’s up to the state of California to do so.
As people know, the supermarket business is very competitive, with very thin profit margins. Bashas is the last of the larger independent Arizona chains (Frys is now part of Kroger, Bayless disappeared almost 30 years ago, etc.) Bashas made a point of placing stores in smaller towns in Arizona and even beyond (Crownpoint NM, Needles CA) that might not see a supermarket otherwise. Given Bashas’ decades of support of local communities, there’s a lot of sentimental support for the company, but they’re getting squeezed by Kroger/Walmart/Target in their core marketing areas of Phoenix & Tucson. Plus, I would think that California’s regulatory environment might be a bit of a burden for a company with just one store in that state.