L.A. City Council Moves to Attack Problem of Food Deserts

In response to a community effort to bring responsible grocers to underserved areas, the L.A. City Council voted on December 16 to draft an ordinance that would address the lack of access to healthy, affordable food in low-income neighborhoods.

The vote came a day after members of the Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores provided testimony at a city council committee hearing.  Among those testifying was Dr. Cheryl Resnik, from USC Fit Families Program in East Los Angeles, who called the lack of healthy food options an “epidemic” for children in food desert communities.

“Our children don’t have enough healthy food options, and it’s hurting them in a very dramatic way,” she said.  “Rates of obesity, diabetes and other chronic conditions in children in South and East Los Angeles are more than double the rates for children in West Los Angeles.”

City residents for decades have lamented the lack of grocery shopping options in South Los Angeles and in other underserved parts of the city.  In 2008, A Blue Ribbon Commission, convened by the LAANE-led Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores, released a report urging L.A. city leaders to take the lead in remedying a growing gap in the grocery industry’s treatment of underserved and affluent communities.

In spite of repeated efforts to expand access to good grocery options for underserved parts of the city, whole swaths of Los Angeles are “food deserts,” the report found. Even in those low-income communities where major chains have opened, the quality of food and service is inferior to what is offered in stores in more affluent neighborhoods, the report showed.

Grocery jobs in less affluent neighborhoods are also inferior to those in other parts of the city. The average grocery worker in East Los Angeles, South Los Angeles and the Northeast San Fernando earns at least $7,000 less than employees of West Los Angeles stores, according to the California Economic Development Department, which collects employment data.

The Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores urged the City to create a city-wide policy that would designate areas of the city underserved by full-service markets as Food Priority Districts where all grocers seeking to expand should be encouraged and supported.

In addition, coalition members want the law to require grocery chains seeking to open a new store or renovate an existing store to be evaluated in terms of the store’s impact on a community’s health, economic well being and environmental sustainability.

“A lot of promises have been made to L.A.’s communities, but there’s been little to show for it over the years,” said Elliott Petty, Director of Retail Projects at the Los Angles Alliance for a New Economy. “This policy will establish standards in an industry that is critical to the physical and economic health of its residents.”

The committee also heard testimony from Rev. Norman Johnson, pastor of First New Christian Fellowship Missionary  Baptist Church in Los Angeles and co-chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission on the L.A. Grocery Industry and Community Health, as well as representatives from Occidental College’s Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 770.