One Prince George’s County Council member wants to open county-run grocery store

While there are plenty of grocery stores in Prince George s County Maryland the further inside the Capital Beltway you get the harder they are to find That has one member of the county council wondering if the county should open its own grocery store While she stated there s no guarantee it would be feasible council vice chair Krystal Oriadha declared the county has to at least consider the possibility for neighborhoods that don t have access to fresh food I think that if we keep on waiting for a grocery store to come into communities like inside of the Beltway especially in Seat Pleasant where I live we ll be waiting for a very long time Oriadha mentioned And I feel like it s our responsibility to figure out how to do it and do it right The issue is complicated as Oriadha disclosed she doesn t want to create something that turns a profit for the county but added she doesn t want it to cost the county either At the same time the intention is not to compete with established grocery stores in the area Those grocery stores have had every opportunity to come in the communities that they re refusing to come in They ve had multiple incentives talked about on the local level and passed on the state level and they still won t come And so it can t be that you get to decide not to serve our region and the administration should just sit back and do nothing about it she mentioned If approved by the rest of the council her resolution calls on a six month scrutiny that seeks answers to several questions that would loom over any decision to move forward with the idea If we had a leadership owned grocery store in Prince George s County what would that look like Where would it work What management models make sense What funding models make sense How do we make it cost neutral Oriadha mentioned A draft of her resolution cites stores in Oklahoma and Florida though the one in Baldwin Florida ultimately closed last year because the finances couldn t work It was the only grocery store in town and operated for five years A similar store in Kansas City Missouri is also struggling It s really pivotal to step back and do the feasibility survey first to look at what has worked what hasn t worked why they ve worked Oriadha mentioned Are the same factors the same for here in Prince George s County Are there models that make sense that are funded by the regime but operating in more of a co-op model There s a lot of options and so it s about this could work and finding out if it could work for us here A large number of people Oriadha mentioned are forced to shop for groceries at dollar stores which lack fresh food options Oriadha stated she s hopeful state lawmakers will eventually pass a law allowing grocery stores to sell beer and wine adding stores have explained her that would work as another incentive to open in neighborhoods they otherwise ignore If we target it to areas that have no grocery stores we re not even saying every grocery store can have it Oriadha reported Let s say it s incentive to build a grocery store where we don t have one But we have big money deciding again that we can t have those incentives because if grocery stores sell beer and wine for particular reason people think all the liquor stores will fail I mean that s just not the reality Source