The market plans to move the bread and pastry bakery, the food kitchen, and the offices to Hillsborough. Here is a letter I sent to several local newspapers about the move:
The scheduled move of Weaver St. Market’s “food production facilities” and offices to Hillsborough will result in a loss of around 80 jobs for Carrboro and have a detrimental effect on the town and the environment.
The environmental impacts are the most obvious: 80 workers driving 24 miles each work day equals around 2000 miles a day. That is a lot of carbon emission, and it doesn’t include the added distribution miles of having a non-centrally located “production and office facility”.
The workers will suffer most directly: adding an hour of driving onto their daily work routine; for many, having to buy a car; leaving their work community in vibrant downtown Carrboro; and for the bakers, having to start work at 2 a.m. instead of 4 a.m., to allow for extra distribution time.
Most of the food kitchen staff is Hispanic, live in Carrboro, and do not drive to work. The impact on the Hispanic community is unclear. Some may move to Hillsborough and some may be forced to quit, weakening the fabric of an important piece of our community.
Carrboro businesses should also not be happy about 80 downtown jobs leaving. That loss translates to a lot of lunches, dinners, drinks, shopping, etc., done elsewhere.
Ruffin Slater lists some benefits of the move in the latest Weaver St. newsletter, but they fail to persuade me that Weaver St. would be following its mission or benefiting the consumer-owners. Additionally, I would miss the fresh-baked bread and pastries, the fresh hot-bar, and my friends whom I would no longer see walking to work or taking a break on the market lawn.
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I published the post you submitted on OrangePolitics, please come join the conversation.
http://orangepolitics.org/2007/05/weaver-st-move/
Keep up the good fight!
Ken
Won't the additional employee commuting miles will be more than offset by the mileage savings of the customers for whom the Hillsborough store will be closer?
Didn't the WSM employees choose to go to Hillsborough based on all the options they had for expansion?
I just think its a big ridiculous that the same people who agreed to go to Hillsborough all of a sudden go up in arms.
As a consumer, I like the idea that the cooperative I invest in is making a good choice in business. If they just focused on staying in one town and not using my investment to better my cooperative, I would request a refund.
-Leann Rocut
Yes, the new bakehouse will have skylights or whatever. But i bet you havent heard that there are no actual windows. Now hows that for having a nice opened shoppe for no one to see. No interaction. Welcome to the weaver street factory. This upsets me. Not to mention the rumor about potential self-checkouts. WTF
On the other hand, Disgusting CarrMall Mall charges 22 dollars per square foot for Weaver Street to Rent every single month. And Hillsborough is 3 dollars per month. That fact alone may be enough to bring you some solace in understanding these particular decisions in the expansion of the weave.
Change, by default is neutral. Lets hope and vote, as it evolves, for this change to be a great one. :)
As far as the bread is concerned, do you really purchase yours at 7 AM. Will bread made a 1/2 hour away really be so old?
The hot bar is also made hours before it get to you and it sits out there for hours under lights, so lets not call it fresh.
I can see the point about the employees but the fact of the matter is, the carrboro store needs more space to handle the increased volume of business. The kitchen is too small, the bathrooms are woefully tiny and the produce section barely has enough room to operate.
I work there (and I'm an owner), so I have a pretty keen grasp on the situation. As owners, dont we want to see the business expand and keep providing locally-produced products rather than Harris teeter or other chains coming to town? It is important for Weaver St to stake its claim in other towns as the population continues to grow, rather than come in and compete with corporations
With the reactions of some people, you would think they are announcing a merger with halliburton
You Tell them JR!
Leann Rocut
If WSM was really committed to local sustainability, they'd simply lease space in Carrboro. As is, I have no faith that anything WSM says is anything more than marketing. WSM is all about money, money, and more money. They're really no different than any other for-profit corporation. They're not a co-op in any sense of the word.
I can think of one potential positive impact of the Hillsborough move that I haven't seen brought up yet.
Right now, the truck delivery situation at the Carrboro store is pretty ridiculous. In order for a large vehicle to get in and out of the loading dock, police have to stop traffic. I seem to spend a lot of my
Carrboro driving time waiting for big trucks to get in and out of the loading area off Greensboro Street.
If having a new space for food production would minimize the number of times driver have to be inconvenienced by deliveries, I'm in favor of it. I can't think of anywhere else in my daily driving that I face similar traffic tie-ups due to deliveries.
Anonymous (6/11), if you read the interview with S Ruffin (linked in the OrangePolitics discussion), you'd see that they looked for space in Carrboro and found none. Nada. Zip.
I would also like to point out, dear Carrboro citizens, that you have zero farms. Your "local" milk in the glass bottles comes from Hillsborough, which some people apparently don't consider "local," so you should stop buying it and not be a hypocrite.
People who live in Hillsborough have to go to Chapel Hill or Carrboro to buy quality groceries, watch a movie on the big screen, and eat in restaurants (other than the 4 we have, plus fast food.) Our money goes to subsidize your "local" food and your restaurants. I'd rather save the gas and CO2 I spend driving 10-15 miles to get groceries, and shop a mile and a half from my house.
But Dan seems to be begrudging us that. Well, thanks. It also seems that his complaint includes "but what about meeeeeeee? I won't see my friends!!!" That's life, bud.
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