Logan Heights group harvests true civic spirit

LEONEL SANCHEZ

Staff Writer -- San Diego Union Tribune

15-Dec-1995 Friday

Two years ago, a modest store opened with a few stocked shelves and a home refrigerator to store milk.

The owners were Logan Heights families frustrated with shopping at stores that sold cheap liquor but no fresh milk for their children.

The fruit of their tireless labor was evident yesterday at the opening of their new store at 3140 Market St.

The Neighbors United Community Market is well supplied with a fresh meat department and supermarket-style coolers filled with everything except liquor.

"We didn't have many things to offer when we first opened but we had an idea," community organizer Richard Flyer told guests at the festive grand opening.

"We had a vision of what we could accomplish," he said.

Latino and African-American clergymen blessed that vision -- and the food along the aisles -- during the festivities.

The market will make a big difference in their lives, residents said.

"This is exciting," said Susana Mercado, who lives at 33rd Street and Market. "There's a lot of people who don't have cars and I know they will be shopping here.

"It's a surprise that somebody would take a risk and open something like this," she added. "Usually we get stores that want to sell tobacco and liquor and keep their prices high."

The owner is Neighbors United, a nonprofit association made up of a diverse group of residents who originally banded together to push drug dealers out of their neighborhood. After they succeeded in closing some drug houses, they formed Neighbors United and turned their attention to improving conditions in the area.

Residents long had complained about the absence of a fair-priced supermarket near their homes. Their neighborhood stores were owned by people who lived outside the communities and did not spend money there.

"Nearly 80 percent of the businesses in the area are owned by nonresidents," said Flyer, citing U.S. Census information.

"The owners of these businesses are taking this money and spending it in other communities. This is how poverty is reinforced every day."

The group opened a food cooperative at 30th Street and Imperial Avenue and immediately began preaching unity and responsibility ahead of profits.

The members refused to sell liquor or cigarettes because of their harmful effects. Eventually, they offered parenting and English classes.

About 200 families were members of the co-op and paid monthly dues of $2 and worked two hours a month at the store to support it.

Their efforts caught the city's attention. Neighbors United has received more than $300,000 in community development block grants the past two years. It qualified for the funding because of its plan to acquire and renovate an old property to benefit the community.

The group purchased the market and a second building to be used for classes in parenting, English as a second language, nutrition and small business development.

It purchased the properties with a bank loan and used some of the grant money to make the down payment and renovations.

City Councilman Juan Vargas, who helped the group secure the community grants, reminded Neighbors United members yesterday that it was their hard work that made it all possible.

"It was not us. It was you," said Vargas, who represents the district where the blue-painted store with the sliding door will now operate seven days a week.

"What you have done is to empower people to own their own businesses, to be entrepreneurs," he said.

The nonprofit Neighbors United will oversee the for-profit venture as it strives to become an employee-owned business.

That is a sweet-sounding plan to neighborhood residents such as Leroy Brown, 46, who will be the store's manager.

"Employee ownership," he said. "Now that is an incentive."

Copyright Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

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