[URBAN NOTE] Two Toronto Star articles on the Loblaws in Kensington Market

[rfmcdonald]

Following up on my post of last month defending the opening of a Loblaw's grocery store on the periphery of Kensington Market, I thought I'd share two Toronto Star articles dealing with the issue. One is more relevant than the other.

The first, John Semley's article of the 2nd of this month, "Kensington Market Loblaws: beyond a debate over gentrification", I don't quite understand. How does the provenance of mangos relate to a neighbourhood where people are always going to care about the provenance of mangos?

Over the past year, Kensington has become a battleground, a site of contestation. As Loblawsian corporate interests further come to define Toronto, many have taken up the cause of protecting heritage communities against the corporatized steamrolling that defines, oh, pretty much everything.

[. . .]

In a way this battle has already been lost. Friends of Kensington Market are determined to preserve a spirit that’s already receded.

Kensington’s uniqueness has already been co-opted in less obvious ways. It was 2009 when Max and Son Meat Market, a tiny family-owned butcher on Baldwin St., was bought out by Peter Sanagan, laying the tracks for a much bigger, 5,000 square foot space hawking organic heirloom pheasants and artisanal pepperettes.

[. . .]

The places seemingly threatened by the new Loblaws are Nü Kensington, belonging to a second (or third) generation. It’s not Max and Sons. It’s Sanagan’s. It’s not Augusta Egg Market (RIP). It’s Blue Banana. That dude who used to sell records on the street on Pedestrian Sundays now has his own store on Dundas West. It’s a subtler form of gentrification — well, subtler than a 20,000 square foot chain supermarket being airdropped into the market’s perimeter — which may make it harder to mobilize against. Anyway, Kensington’s friends seem concerned less about the neighbourhood gentrifying than about it gentrifying in the wrong way.

It’s easy to dismiss this concern as just so much trumped-up, pearl-clutching NIMBYism. Some even suggest that having (or taking) a stake in these things is just resistance to change, as if seeing the city homogenize into a uniform Joe Fresh/Loblaws/Hero Burger/LCBO complex meaningfully amounts to some value-neutral form of “change.”

But there’s something despairing at the heart of that view. Ultimately, the Kensington kerfuffle goes beyond a debate over gentrification to a larger, ideological schism. You either care about the ventures of independent retailers or you don’t. You’re either invested in the provenance of your organic mangoes or you’re not. In between caring and not is a divide much deeper than the one that separates Big Corporations from Small Independents.

Laura Kane's article from the 10th of February, in contrast, I do get. Kane went to an area on Queen Street West that recently saw a Loblaw's opening and saw what happened. Some stores did better than others, the ones catering to more specific markets doing best.

Inside the Healthy Butcher on Queen St. W., hungry shoppers quiz staff on bison steaks and warm chickpea stews, while the steady chime of the cash register rings in the background.

Business is booming in the small meat shop and deli, even though it’s barely a stone’s throw from a massive Loblaws complex.

“We gained customers because we just kind of work off each other,” says Healthy Butcher owner Mario Fiorucci, who estimates his sales have grown at least 25 per cent since the grocery giant moved next door in 2011.

“People still want to get their meat or prepared foods here because it’s all made in-house, and it’s just a different level of food and service,” he says. “But at the same time Loblaws offers a lot of things that we don’t, so it’s complementary.”

It’s a glimmer of hope for small food vendors in Kensington Market, who fear a planned Loblaws on College St. will run them out of business. Meanwhile, other shops on this Queen West strip tell a very different story, with some saying their sales have been cut in half.

Asked whether he has any advice for Kensington retailers, Fiorucci says it’s important to remember specialty stores offer superior food and service. He imagines he’s lost some convenience shoppers, but says his store has become a “destination” for true foodies.

“People can come in here, ask where a specific steak is from and get an answer. We can tell them which farm it’s from, if it’s grass fed, even the name of the animal before it was killed,” he says with a laugh.