[Durham INC] Alston Ave. Widening and Los Primos

[John Martin]

Hi Diane,

I was disturbed by something you were quoted as saying in today's Herald Sun:

"If DOT waits until the last minute to buy land near East Main Street for a 
widening of Alston, council members said, it'll buy time to see if a grocery 
store across the street from the mission, Los Primos, goes out of business 
because of its recent problems with law enforcement.

"'This issue may resolve itself,' Councilwoman Diane Catotti said."

This makes it sound as though you and other Council members are hoping that 
LosPrimos will go out of business so as to facilitate the widening of Alston 
Ave.  I certainly hope that this does not, in fact, accurately reflect your 
views or the views of other Council members.  

Since moving to Morning Glory Ave. nine months ago (a block-and-a-half from 
LosPrimos) I have come to have a far better appreciation of the importance of 
this store than I ever did when I lived in Northgate Park or Old West Durham. 
 To begin with, LosPrimos is surrounded by housing for low and moderate-income 
senior citizens in the old Durham Hosiery Mill, the housing complex at Morning 
Glory, Alston, and Worth St., and somewhat further afield, Oldham Towers.   When 
I first moved into my house, I was a bit puzzled by the number of seniors I saw 
whizzing down my street in motorized wheel chairs.  I ultimately realized that a 
number of these people lived in Oldham Towers.  They were going to LosPrimos, 
and since they didn't have automobiles, their wheelchairs were their best means 
of transportation.  Other seniors have to walk.  About two weeks ago, as I was 
going into LosPrimos, an elderly man was coming out, struggling with a walker 
and two plastic bags of food.  When I came out of the store ten minutes later, I 
saw the same gentleman, slowly and painfully crossing Morning Glory Ave. towards 
the senior apartment where he evidently lived. It had taken him ten minutes to 
go the length of a city block.  A journey across the street was an ordeal for 
this man.

I have one question:  if LosPrimos closes, where will this man get his 
groceries?  Whole Foods?

I sometimes hear people who live in other parts of Durham say that LosPrimos is 
"not much of a grocery story," presumably because it is not the size of a 
suburban Harris-Teeter (i.e., the size of a small airport with a parking lot the 
size of a runway) and doesn't sell fourteen different varieties of organic 
mushrooms.  But I will tell you something that LosPrimos does have:  a van with 
free delivery.  What other grocery store in Durham does that?  It offers free 
delivery, of course, because it understands how many of its customers do not 
have automobiles, and cannot easily carry a week's worth of groceries for a 
family of five.  You and I can shop anywhere we want, but many, many people in 
my neighborhood cannot.  And I will tell you something else that LosPrimos has: 
 jobs.  If it goes out of business, where will those people get new jobs, and 
why on earth should the City government be trying to kill a business that 
provides jobs in an economically depressed part of the City?

The grocery store has been called an "environmental justice" issue, and, before 
I moved to this neighborhood, that just sounded like legalese to me.  Now I know 
that it really is an issue of social justice.  Some people evidently want to 
kill a small business that employes numerous people and provides a vital service 
to some of the most vulnerable people in our City:  the old and the poor.

Please do not join the people trying to destroy LosPrimos.

John Martin