BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Bankruptcy courts have cleared the way for the Haggen Corporation to sell 47 of its grocery stores, 11 of which are in Washington State.
Most of the stores were sold to Albertsons, which plans to convert all of them to either Albertsons or Safeway within the next 30 days.
Thanksgiving Eve is traditionally one of the busiest days in the grocery business. The Fred Meyer in Gig Harbor was jammed with customers.
A few blocks away, the Haggen store parking lot, and the store, suddenly became a ghost town. At 6 p.m. Wednesday, the remaining workers stripped the shelves, locked the doors and walked away.
"People's lives have been completely disrupted by this," said Terry O'Toole, a former meat department manager at the store, which was converted from a Safeway eight months ago.
"This hurt a lot of people," O'Toole said. "It shook a lot of people to their core. There was a lot of depression going on. Morale here was horrible."
O'Toole said the Gig Harbor store did a booming business, before Haggen bought it along with 140 other stores.
"This last Christmas as Safeway, we were the busiest meat department in the entire Northwest division," he said. "I mean, we went from hero to zero real fast. Haggen took over here and it was tumbleweeds."
O'Toole, who blames the downturn on higher prices, hopes to be hired by Albertsons or Safeway.
Former loyal Safeway customers like Maurice Hanks told KIRO 7 that Haggen's commitment to higher prices for higher quality items killed its business in some markets.
"If you're a business student, business 101, you learn (to) listen to your customers," Hanks said. "Look at your market. If you're not making it, you need to shift quickly, because if you don't, this is what happens. You die."
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