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Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues.
I asked in a post last week that developers not go out of their way to accomodate cars and that residents not go out of their way to drive. Reasonable propositions. Still, as a number of commenters noted, you can't suggest something along those lines and then expect Washingtonians to be heroes, throwing knapsacks over their shoulders as they head off on a long march to the grocery store two miles away. If we want city life to look a certain way, we have to do our best to make that way easy and attractive.
Part of that process is improving access to and the quality of public transit. The city should make extending and upgrading its transit system a high priority, but that will take plenty of time and money to do. A complementary plan is considerably easier--allow neighborhoods to do more to serve their residents by zoning for retail in predominantly residential areas.
This is not something Washington does well. A look at the city's zoning maps is illustrative. With the exception of a few neighborhoods, commercial zoning proceeds solely along main streets, resulting in large blocks of residential land without any retail establishments. It's not an accident that many of the District's residents have to walk long distances to pick up necessities; that's specifically how the city drew it up.
Why is this a poor way to lay out one's neighborhoods? For starters, as mentioned before, the longer someone has to walk to get something that they need, the more likely they are to use a car to do it. Longer walks decrease the load someone is able to carry on foot, further pushing them toward the use of a car. Even when just an odd or an end is needed, residents find themselves driving to get it, because no nearby option is available to them.
Of course, once someone is in a car, there's no particular reason for them to opt for the closest store when a bigger or better one, perhaps with more parking, is just a little further away. There is no guarantee, even, that the driver will stay in the District. Whatever their choice, it's likely to be one that caters to people using automobiles. By pushing residents into their cars, the city makes solvency more difficult for businesses seeking to attract pedestrians and easier for big box behemoths with acres of welcoming pavement. It also ensures that some dollars which might have been spent in the city instead flow into the suburbs, where more of those big box collections await.
Picture taken by billadler.
Certainly that aspect of concentrated zoning entails a bias against independent business, but that's not the end of the troubles for them. By focusing retail into fewer and concentrated areas, the city increases the customer base served by any one location, thus making them more attractive locations for chains. A corner bodega or deli serving one or two streets might be profitable while also focusing on a customer base too small to draw in chains. Push that independent business onto a high traffic commercial strip, however, and suddenly it finds itself competing with national chains and franchises -- not an easy environment for the small-time enterpreneur. By allowing business to distribute itself throughout residential areas, the city would make way for more businesses, more independent businesses, employing more people and with more money staying here in the District. That might not be as glamorous as the construction of a new Target, but it would be welcome news to many Washingtonians.
The benefits don't end there. As Jane Jacobs would tell us, small retail spread around neighborhoods encourages more people to spend more time on more streets. Busy streets serve many neighborhood functions, from improving community communication and organization to self-policing.
And the city shouldn't forget that this is something that many residents want. It's annoying to have to go a long way to get something, to have to drive and face crowds, to always have to go to the sad and boring CVS. It's very nice to have a little shop or two close by. To have places to go for a missing ingredient or a sandwich, for some toothpaste or a drink with your neighbors. Distributed retail would make life in the city better, and it would do so at a minimal cost to the government. Mayor Fenty has the announcement of a new retail action strategy as part of his 100 day plan. He'd do well to consider letting the stores come to the people.
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There's a problem with this approach: few small business owners are capable of running viable markets in DC, I can only think of a handful that survive without deriving most of their sales from beer and wine. The big chains are almost as bad, as evidenced by Giant simply replacing smaller stores with newer, bigger ones, and Safeway's oft-derided small stores around the city.
Inviting in more chains that can run a small store well, such as Trader Joe's, would be great, except that these stores usually refuse to go anywhere that doesn't have a parking garage. Hopefully Fenty can solve this one by either limiting the ability of anti-business ANCs to block new garages, or find a way to convince businesses that DC residents really are willing to walk a block or two for groceries.
Why is it reasonable to ask people not to drive? It's unreasonable. If you want to live in a city that is pro-public transportation then get to Europe quick, because they're abandoning that model in favor of private car ownership. In China? Don't even joke about those old-fashioned pictures of commuters on bikes, those days are over and car use is growing worldwide. Ask not how people can get onto annoying trains, ask how we can make cars pollution-free. You're so focused on the wrong question you can't see the forest for the trees and seem shockingly out of touch with America.
Jesus, Washingtonianer, where do you live, Sterling? I lived in DC for 10 years without a car, and I had no complaints.
DC, New York, Boston - all these cities have great public transportation and lots of people who do without their own cars. You can do the same in most cities in Europe quite easily too.
Now that I've relocated to California (not by choice either), boy do I miss being able to get around so easily! DCist, you may have a beef with DC's zoning, but believe me, they do it hundreds of times better than anything on the west coast.
Having to drive everywhere has a multitude of little effects on quality of life I never would have imagined. Nobody does happy hour because of their cars and long commutes. And I've gained 10 pounds in six months!
I've lived here 12 years without a car, and wouldn't change a thing. I grew up out west where you really have to have a car to do anything,that sucked, here in DC there is no reason to use a car to get anywhere.
same thoughts, no need for a car to get anywhere I need to go, and, take Paris, France, which is in Europe last time I checked, where they are heavy on public transport and not so hot on private cars these days.
Great article!
I would have to believe that Washingtonianer is indeed from Sterling.
What an asshat remark
"Don't even joke about those old-fashioned pictures of commuters on bikes, those days are over and car use is growing worldwide."
Give me a break.
There seems to be a flawed assumption that if a business is small then it's inherently good. I stopped keeping track of the corner bodegas that carried nothing but cheap booze, outdated bread, flat sodas, and oddball junk food like "Rap Snacks." For every decent mom-and-pop, there's three that just don't seem to give a damn. City Paper did an cover story on just this subject a few years back.
On the other hand, I know a couple Korean run stores where the owners actually caved to local requests and stocked fresh decent vegetables for a while, but ended up dropping them because nobody bought them. Kinda like how everybody wants a cool used bookstore in their neighborhood, but they all end up folding because they can't sell enough books.
I've lived 3 years downtown without a car and 7 with and that whole decade sucked for a variety of reasons, none of which had to do with whether I had a car or not. Seems to me the zoning rules are a carryover from industrial/factory days when residents wanted noisy businesses segregated to certain areas and commercial corridors isolated away from where people actually lived. That sort of rationale is still applicable today: check out the downtown blog rants from people who complain about local businesses and restaurants loading and unloading mechandise in the wee hours of the morning. It's like people move into condos above a fish market then complain about the smell.
BTW, the Master P Platinum Barbecue Rap Snacks aren't that bad.
I didn't say that small was inherently good, only that small was more likely to mean independent.
It's true that many of the small bodegas in D.C. are as monkey describes. Part of the problem, however, is that small, distributed retail depends on foot traffic, and since the only retail options in many areas are subpar bodegas, there isn't much foot traffic. The process of improving retail and getting people out onto the streets is therefore a slow one. The city can help out, however, by not doing its damnedest to attract big chain retailers, not going out of its way to suburbanize commercial concentrations (as always the Brentwood Shopping Center is the most greivous example), and by generally encouraging density in residential neighborhoods.
Does anybody here really give a fat rat's fart whether a store's independent or not? Most folks care whether a store's products are good, service isn't inept, and they're selling at a decent price. If independence was the coin of the realm, the indie coffee shops would be putting Starbucks out of business. I mean, it's nice if nobody was raped or murdered while picking my coffee beans, but I'm not going out of my way to find out how sensitive the supplier is.
But just because it's not small (or independent) doesn't mean it's inherently bad either. Compare Costco to Walmart and you see higher wages, greater productivity, broader healthcare coverage, happier customers AND employees.
Economies of scale would dictate that a bigger store would have more variety and less expensive products. Wegmans is better than Safeway is better than Balduccis is better than 24/7 Food Mart. It's a moot point anyway, since current zoning laws favor Soviet Safeways and Ghetto Giants, and residents have to bust their chops and lobby themselves for a Whole Foods with zero assistance from the DC gummint. And people continue to vote with their feet (or tires, as the case may be) and drive across the bridge to get non-rotting produce at Harris Teeter and Shoppers Food Warehouse. Never surprises me how many DC plates are in those parking lots. And we owe it all to lousy mom-and-pop bodegas and an outdated nostalgia for the local A&P and Sanitary Grocery chains.
Or to quote The Simpsons:
Marge: Well, I guess Macys and Gimbels learned to live together.
Agnes: Gimbles is gone, Marge. Long gone. You're Gimbels.
Monkey raises some very valid points. I'm lucky enough to live close to some really good corner stores. But even they don't really have good produce or meats, probably because we just don't buy enough to keep it from rotting on the shelves. And many of these little shops in DC really pretty much suck.
I personally think any city council member that was able to strike some sort of deal to bring say half a dozen Wegmans to DC would be ensured of reelection forever. In fact, we'd probably elect them Emperor. Having a decent grocery really is that important to many of us. And, yes, right now I go to the burbs for groceries.
Why care whether a business is independent or not? For one thing, chains export much of a store's profit out of the metro area. For another, independent businesses help give a city identity. If you don't value a city with non-chain restaurants, shops, bars, groceries, and so on, then fine, but it isn't correct to say that no one does.
Your causation is very much backwards, monkey. Lousy bodegas don't drive people to suburban supermarkets. Suburban supermarkets, and the poor public policies that subsidize driving and reduced density and lead to suburban shopping centers, undermine the market for local and independent retail, leaving many bodegas in their current lousy shape.
We look at existing retail options and think, well it's CLEAR that large, chain businesses are better, but we've designed our regulatory environment and infrastructure to guarantee that outcome. Those policies, however, entail significant costs to society. Pollution and congestion from more and longer car trips for one. Loss of economic diversity for another. Reduction of the urban tax base for a third. Changing our policy choices would help make the older model viable again, reducing the costs listed above.
Bad public choices led to the current retail structure. Better public choices can create a better one.
I highly doubt DC will ever get a single Wegmans, let alone a half dozen. Wegmans is probably the single most space-hungry grocery chain, requiring multiple acres and nearly half devoted to parking. That basically flies in the face of the high-density crowd. Besides, there's just not that many multi-acre sites available in DC.
Side note, Mount Vernon Gazette is reporting some early rumblings of a Wegmans being the anchor store in Kings Crossing (Route 1 and South Kings Highway). It's not DC, but it's Huntington Metro accessible and a helluva lot closer than Dulles or Fairfax.
Your causation is very much backwards, monkey. Lousy bodegas don't drive people to suburban supermarkets.
Tell that to all the DC plates I see in every suburban grocery store I've ever been to. Sorry. Flush twice.
Suburban supermarkets, and the poor public policies that subsidize driving and reduced density and lead to suburban shopping centers, undermine the market for local and independent retail, leaving many bodegas in their current lousy shape.
This is starting to sound chicken-and-the-egg argument. What came first, lousy bodegas or urban grocery flight? Suburban supermarkets are the economic outgrowth of suburban growth. Seems to me you've got it backwards. What drove the Boomer generation's parents out of downtown DC/NYC and into Greenbelt/Levittown? Desegregation as well as having to pay through the nose for rent on a cramped apartment where you're stacked like cordwood, i.e., DENSITY. Many DC residents get their groceries outside DC for the same reason middle class families continue to flee: DC's craptacular economic develoment policies and confiscatory taxes. And I'm not even going to touch the grocery wasteland that is Ward 8.
I will give you the economic diversity argument. There needs to be more choices, not only in foodstuffs but in affordable dining options and hardware stores and just cheap stuff to do in general. But I think that again is the function of extreme wealth living next to extreme poverty. Your choices are limited to tapas and Tastykake. But I really don't buy this as the result of some pro-automobile conspiracy. It's like when they asked Dillinger why he robbed banks. "Because that's where the money is." Well, that's why people haul ass to the slugburgs on the weekend, because that's where the groceries are.
And I'm really sick of the smug "lookit me, i live in dc without a car just fine" crowd. If I had a buck for every carfree fetishist friend I had to drive to the grocery store or Ikea or a freaking concert, I'd buy them all Zipcar gift certificates and tell them to pack it with walnuts or buy a goddamned Vespa and STFU.
"If I had a buck for every carfree fetishist friend I had to drive to the grocery store or Ikea or a freaking concert, I'd buy them all Zipcar gift certificates "
Why go through any of the trouble when they could hook up w/zip/flexcar themselves? They're great for the occasional Home Depot/Ikea run.
I go to Costco once a month, but that's the only regular shopping trip I feel the need to take out of the city. The rest of the time, I actually do shop by bike. Been doing it for years...
Nice article, Ryan.
You and a few of the commenters pointed out that people drive into the suburbs to go grocery shopping because its slim pickings within the district. Imagine then what the many DC residents who don't have the same resources (be it cars or time) have to do get healthy food. Do they undertake a long trip via public tranportation out to the suburbs? Or are they more likely to resort to what they find at the local bodega, healthy or not? This is having very serious health impacts in the poorest urban neighborhoods in DC and most cities in the US.
DC should form a food policy council to assess the food situation in DC and identify policy changes to help transform it.
Monkey, I just don't think those assertions stand up to scrutiny. People don't care about density, per se, they care about quality of life and how much they have to pay for it. In the past, those calculations (helped along considerably by a half century of strongly pro-suburb public policy) led many people to move out of cities. Increasingly, high home prices, declining public services, and serious congestion issues are pushing individuals and families out of suburbs and back into cities (while suburbs also do their best to look like cities--growing denser, introducing mixed use development, and planning for mass transit).
The District is going to continue to grow more dense. We can either opt for suburban style retail and import suburban style congestion, or we can encourage alternatives.
Increasingly, high home prices, declining public services, and serious congestion issues are pushing individuals and families out of suburbs and back into cities
Because in DC, home prices are going down, public services are improving dramatically, and congestion is no longer an issue, he said while waiting in gridlock on M Street on his way back to his $800 mil Foggy Bottom efficiency condo having waited in line at DMV for 4 hours.
You dcists always get the primo reefer. Who's your supplier?
Show of hands: if the District were going to blow up the Reeves Center to make way for a multileveled Costco with a parking garage, how many would show up to protest and how many would offer to donate dynamite?
One example of extreme stupidity..... Zipcar and Flexcar recently asked the city to allow them to use a select few public street spaces. In nearly every instance neighbors protested, saying that would take away from street parking for them. That's true, but in my 'hood street parking is a lost cause anyway, in large part because we aren't serious about stopping commuters from hoarding our neighborhood street spaces.
If we're serious about transit, Zipcar and Flexcar and similar services need to be a part of the solution.
But, in typical DC fashion, citizens came out of the woodwork to protest. And a lot of them were these holier-than-thou "I've never owned a car" folks. I really do applaud those that can get by without a car. But not all of us can. Try renovating a bathroom without a car. Try delivering meals for Food and Friends without a car. Try running a business without a car. It's often not possible
The other thing we need are actual taxi stands. Take two street spaces in high density areas and make them for taxis only. It works very well in a lot of European cities.
And of course we need a total overhaul of our taxi system. For public transit to work we MUST have a reliable taxi system. As it is right now it's a make-work program. Everyone is afraid of offending low income taxi drivers. So we put up with a total lack of education (drivers that literally don't know where the White House is), decrepit dangerous cabs, filthy conditions, etc.
We need to do like NYC, with a medallion system and basic minimum cab requirements.
Until we do that, we can't seriously say we are pursuing a public transit society.
There's gridlock everywhere, but there are 40 Metro stations in the District. No other suburban location comes close. If you want to live within eyeshot of downtown, then sure, you'll pay a premium. I live in Brookland and pay half what I would for a similiar property in Fairfax. I renewed my DC license at the Brookland DMV two weeks ago. I was in and out in less than thirty minutes. When I orginally got my license five years ago at the main DMV office, it took me approximately thirty minutes during lunch hour.
Not in every way but in many ways, the District just works better than suburban alternatives. It would work better still if the city adjusted its policies to enhance the value of DC's urban amenities.
Limits on commerical zoning in residential areas should be in place to control the adverse effect of business.
For example, I do no want to be woken up in the morning by a bakery making the mornings fresh bagels . . . or late night activity. . . . especially if I have a newborn who keeps me up at night already.
Zoning serves it's purpose and limited commercial activity to main streets makes sense. Main streets throughout the district are within walking distance and bike rides to residences.
The zoning of Houston seems to be an exemplar of what this artcile suggests.
Retra, I think the basic premise of the article is that people shouldn't have to get in a car to meet their basic needs. It is true that mainstreets in the district are "within walking distance and bike rides to residences." It is not true, however, that every resident can walk, ride a bike, or even take transit from their home to a store that meets their needs.
The point isn't that grocery stores should be built in the middle of residential areas, irregardless of where other retail is located. (Besides, retail does better in clusters.) The point is rather that everyone should be able to get to a grocery store without having to get in a car. Not every mainstreet offers grocery stores. What DC needs is more *strategically planned* retail areas.
FYI: Houston, doesn't have zoning.
For example, I do no want to be woken up in the morning by a bakery making the mornings fresh bagels . . .
Because THAT would freaking SUCK. WTF wants to smell freshly baked bread. IN THE MORNING?!
You live in a city....why?
Retra: Within biking distance? That's not really realistic. First, there's winter. Then, there's the fact that many of us aren't willing or able to schlep groceries and whatnot back to our houses on bikes. That'd be fairly unsafe even for avid cyclists. Third, there's bike theft. A very real thing in DC.
I think part of the disconnect here is because of the different types of households in DC. Yes, for single condo dwellers, many can go without a car. And schlepping four or five blocks with groceries for one isn't the end of the world. And a lot of younger condo folks don't really eat anyway.
But try being middle-aged, with a family. You aren't going to be able to schlep groceries for a family of three home on your scooter or on a bus. It ain't going to work.
And younger single renters or condo owners often don't need nearly as much as an older family will, or as much as someone having to do house maintenance will, etc.
As for Houston.... I lived in Houston. There is no zoning in Houston. That was great when a great little restaurant wanted to open a block from your house. Probably not so great when an auto body shop wanted to open next door.
I'm not suggesting no zoning. I'm suggesting we ease up a bit, so that corner properties or others can be dry cleaners and corner groceries and neighborhood restaurants.
True, you couldn't have a Whole Foods mid-block in many areas. But you sure as heck could have a little diner, or a corner grocery.
I'd trade a decent diner for any of the crappy store-front churches you see mid-block through most of DC. Funny how we can let anyone open a church that serves only suburbanites literally anywhere, regardless of what neighbors or anyone thinks, but we can't open a neighborhood restaurant in that same space.
The missing link, again, for major grocery store shopping is a reliable and decent taxi system.
People weren't meant to be stacked up like cordwood or spend a third of their lives in tin cans with tires. They were meant to roam the prairies naked, living in teepees and yurts, eating raw bison and being one with nature (i.e., molesting carribou and squirrels). Artificial constructs like cities were meant to address issues of safety and mutual economic benefit and to keep the Mongol hoardes from molesting our sweet, sweet squirrels. Today, the hoardes live next door in group homes or on the street and confuse your alley for a toilet. So much for mutual safety.
As for economic development, this whole thread flies in the face of decades of urban development: retailers DEMAND an anchor store if any large-scale development is to occur. Spreading clusters of small independent boutiques will get you about as much attention as the streetcorner maniac barking in the loudspeaker about jeebus. Unless you can convince the Council that low-impact, low-parking will gain them HIGH tax revenues, office cubes and big box retail will continue to rule the roost. The requisite zoning will continue to enforce that model.
Monkey - How do you molest a squirrel? Aren't there logistics issues involved there? I mean, I'm not packing much in the manly genitalia dept, but even that I'd think would be too much for your average squirrel...
Mutual safety - I think that will be solved, for better or worse, by technology. We'll see DC slowly become a city in which all public areas are under constant video surveillance, ala London. As the technology gets better, this is an eventuality. I used to wrestle with the privacy concerns. But, frankly, I don't see MPD ever being an actual proactive police force, so I'm resigned to video surveillance. All I can hope for now is that we write some laws that do protect the use of the video. It's going to happen. It's only a matter of when.
Anyway, you are right about large development - they demand some sort of anchor store.
But what I really want is what Philly and NYC have - neighborhood-oriented restaurants and bodegas. Ones that don't suck.
But, then, I've always felt that retail and restaurant in DC is about ten years behind the residential resurgence. So many (but not all) local DC businesses still act as if they have a captive audience, that people must shop there because they have no choice. You see it in their crappy selection, the surly attitude, the floors that haven't been mopped since President Carter was fending off giant killer rabbits.
And you see it in the iced tea (this is my own private rant.... I understand if others nod off here). Making iced tea is easy, folks. It's water and tea. Then you put it in the fridge. And when it's old, you throw it away and make more. You don't keep it for a week and serve it anyway because you're too lazy to make more.
I'd say three of every four restaurants on the Hill serve their iced tea days after it's made. It's skanky and tastes terrible. This aint' rocket science, folks. Spend five minutes every morning and make a new batch. To me nothing says lazy bad service like serving your customers rank iced tea.
I'm COMPLETELY down with the iced tea thing. I think it comes down to whether it's written on the menu as "iced tea" or "ice tea." Seems it's better at the latter than the former. Kinda like the Chinese places that sell the dessert item "green tea mouse." I expect to see a frigid moldy rat on a stick, but they give me this excellent gelato stuff.
My measure is the cup of coffee. If they can pull that off, the rest of the menu falls in line. And I'm not talking some boutique crappucino doppio fake-ass eye-tie name slop, I mean a simple cup of goddamn Maxwell House in a diner mug. 9 times out of 10 it's either some rancid bitter caca that's been sitting on the Bunnomatic since Hoover and Tolsen were were poking eachother in the butt, or it's some weak-ass watery stale potliquor slop.
I'll grant you and Ryan that Philly/NYC has us beat on small neighborhood oriented shopping. I think that's largely fed by their having a decent subway, good cab coverage and, in the case of Philly, they never got rid of their streetcars. Bashing cars (and suburban proles) gets you points during the election, but doesn't address the fundamental problem of getting around downtown. The cars (and their infrastructure) aren't going away. A hundred or so years ago, everybody got around on horsedrawn cabs and the place stank to high heaven. If you couldn't afford a horse, you got in your wool three-piece and bowler and rode your bike. You didn't mind the funky smell of stale clothes and rank sweat because you were in the same boat with all the other stanky people. At least today, you have the option of stinking up your own car and not dragging your funk with you in an enclosed Metro car.
It's always amazed me that DC doesn't have more pedicabs. I wonder how many cars we could get off the street if people knew they could give some guy $8 to pedal them from Logan to K Street or Dupont to Georgetown or Union Station to H Street? There should be twice as many cabs downtown. How about those San Francisco busses that are retrofitted to run off the electrical grid? Doesn't some city in Norway or Sweden have free bicycles at key points around town? Just pick one up, do your thing, and drop it off.
As for the sweet, sweet squirrels, you need to think outside the box and not with your wang. We can learn a lesson here from our friends in Greece, as well as from Lesbos. And when you're done, they make a might tasty Brunswick Stew. It's win-win!
Hillman:
The 17th St Safeway often has a taxi waiting out front for the convenience of their patrons. Of course, many people simply walk (or bike) to and from this small urban store. Even with WF down the street, Safeway still does a pretty brisk business.
I'd guess a bit of cajoling would convince other grociers to do this, too.
A side note related to the parking issue. Norwich City Council is considering issuing parking permits based on the length of the vehicle. Escalades + Buick Roadmasters = pay more. Seems like this would free up some streetscape.
http://jalopnik.com/cars/news/fruit-by-the-foot-lengthoriented-parking-fees-on-the-table-in-uk-241771.php
Another solution to the urban grocery condundrum (how do you get a week's worth of groceries home without a car) would be for the stores to offer a delivery service. Gristedes does this in New York for a nominal fee (I think $5). Elsewhere, I've seen grocery stores that offer free delivery if you spend over a certain amount.
I solve it by making a few trips a week to the Secret Safeway on 20th St. Since I'm only buying for the next few days, I can easily carry the one or two bags home. Of course, that leaves me prey to bad decisions since I often stop by on my way home from work when macaroni and cheese looks so much more tempting than vegetables.
In terms of the owner-operated shop debate, the zoning code should be flexible enough to allow for corner stores and neighborhood restaurants. However, it should be noted that even in places like New York and Philly, retail uses (whether neighborhood-serving or regional) tend to cluster together on shopping streets. The issue is really the distance between clusters and the density of the surrounding neighborhoods.
Lee - The old A&Ps downtown used to have delivery boys who'd hang out in front with Radio Flyer wagons and bicycles waiting for delivery orders to come it. But that was back in the day when hausfraus used to leave their kid in the babycarriage in front of the store while they did their shopping. I don't see either coming back any time soon, especially since kids can make more cash selling their soiled underwear on eBay or shaking down tourists.
Peapod does a pretty brisk business delivering for Giant. Wonder why Whole Paycheck doesn't do the same. Aren't they in the business of "adding value," i.e., gouging?
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