I’d like to see a major crack down on the latter–the litter, though insulting, can wait. Blocking traffic lanes to stop to chat with your friends causes accidents, and marks Rhode Island Avenue and the communities of the Northeast as places where rude, selfish driving behavior is quite normal. You do not see this in all parts of the District–why is it OK here? Why is littering OK here? These are not equivalents, obviously, to property crime or violent crime, but they are very odd aspects of living here if you came from elsewhere.

If so, this is a city-wide phenomenon. People illegally park just about anywhere, and a simple flasher somehow justifies it.

Good luck changing the entire city.

I personally think that Safeway’s decision to close the Edgewood store will come back to bite them hard in the final analysis. Once the area improves, it will be much costlier for them to come back to the community, and many people here will resent them for leaving in the first place and (hopefully) choose not to give them their business back. Honestly, I feel like Safeway is losing the grocery store battle in DC. Their stores are lackluster in many areas where better retailers exist, and their prices are too high to draw anyone away from lower-cost options (including Giant, who regularly beats Safeway on price alone). Therefore, they’ve alienated the high-end shopper by providing a low-quality product/shopping experience and the budget-conscious shopper by charging high-end prices. Also, the fact that they’ve increasingly run specials that require a minimum purchase, rather than normal sales, means that, even when they have a great sale on something, it’s not worth it to take advantage (and, as someone who tilts towards the higher-end shopping, I’ve spent way too much time digging through half-rotten produce and understocked merchandise to make it worth my while to save a little at Safeway). I used to spend maybe half of the money I spent on groceries at Safeway, now it’s more like 10% or less, 30-40% going to Giant, and the rest to Harris Teeter. Much more will probably go to Harris Teeter once they open the NY Ave. store. And that says something impressive about Harris Teeter – they’re just a regular old, run-of-the mill grocer outside of DC, but are close to the top of the pile in the city, meaning that they are specifically looking to give urban DC dwellers a high-quality shopping experience.

More on the topic of the post, I certainly hope whoever moves into the S. Dakota location takes to heart the discussions like these going on in the community. Target in CH has not improved, in many ways, as the community surrounding it has, so I hope they don’t see the S. Dakota location as one in which they can get away with lackluster service and quality and get by. One hopes that by supporting a store it will both improve the community by drawing new residents, tax dollars, and shoppers, and provide quality service for the community as it exists and in the future. The last thing we need is to still be fighting battles to get stores up to community standards long after community standards have improved.

To me, it’s like they gave the big middle finger to our whole area, which includes Brookland and areas that I would think would have demographics that Safeway would want shopping at its store. I wasn’t one of the ones protesting its closure, I think businesses have the right to operate stores where they choose, but I also choose as a consumer to not patronize their other stores.

As far as the sketchy crowd in the Giant parking lot, have you contacted your ANC to have a crack down on illicit activity there? When I lived in Ward 6, the ANC was quite effective in cracking down on more serious illicit activity such as prostitution, drug deals, etc.

In short, I’m certainly not suggesting that we should have EVERY retail option at the exact level of the ‘burbs, but there’s a certain level of decency and respect that I find to be missing from large urban retailers. If the social Safeway can afford to have an invitation-only champagne an caviar grand opening in an area with much higher rents, why can’t we expect smooth traffic and respectful staff in a lower-cost urban environment?

But is it bad enough that I would drive to VA just to pick up a loaf of bread? Of course not. If I’m already out there, I will pick up items though.

City stores tend to be more crowded, I read somewhere that stores have to do more business in the city to make a profit, due to higher real estate costs. So while a Target in VA can serve 200,000 residents and be profitable, in the District one must serve 400,000. Over-served stores have issues where they tend to run out of merchandise quicker, longer lines at check outs, etc. I don’t see this changing anytime soon, and we should not want it to, unless we want DC real estate to be priced like Woodbridge, which I don’t. So a lot of this just comes with living in the city.

I’m not like Ms D in that I have on speed dial all the managers of all these stores. It’s just not worth it to me. Everyone has battles in life, and these are battles I just choose not to fight. Though I’m thankful for the Ms D’s out there that demand better service from these stores.