Kopp's store stirring passions

By Judy Newman, Wisconsin State Journal

December 20, 2000

West High School's cafeteria will sizzle tonight as hundreds of residents are expected to make an impassioned plea to keep their neighborhood grocery store.

When Ken Kopp, 70, announced plans three weeks ago to retire and close Ken Kopp's Fine Foods, demolish the building at 1864 Monroe St. and replace it with a Walgreen Drug Store, it fell like a bombshell on the close-knit neighborhood.

"I was shocked and appalled," said Jeff Henriques, who stretched a banner along his fence that read, "Please tell Ken Kopp 'No Walgreens!!!'"

Residents, fearing the loss of both Ken Kopp's and the financially squeezed Regent Market Cooperative nearby, have even taken up a collection. They have amassed about $5,000 in pledges from residents, so far, to help some other buyer propose an alternative that would keep a grocery on Monroe Street, possibly with additional shops and housing.

"They feel so strongly about this, they want to invest," said Barb Sanford, past president of the Vilas Neighborhood Association.

So far, no other buyer has come forward.

But while citizens fighting corporate America may seem to be a David and Goliath story, the issue is not so black-and-white.

With 18 stores in Dane County, is Walgreen Co. trying to squeeze out independent pharmacies, like Neuhauser Pharmacies across from Ken Kopp's?

Or is it offering more products, lower prices and longer hours, as well as jobs for 550 local residents of those stores? That's on top of the 1,000 employees at the Walgreens Distribution Center in Windsor.

Walgreens has come in... and located themselves in strategic areas where others have feared to tread," where crime rates are higher and senior citizens abound, said Ald. Tim Bruer, 14th District. "They deserve a lot of high marks for that."

The Verona Road store, for example, near the Allied Drive area that's battled drug problems, remains open even though a nearby SuperSaver grocery store and other stores in that shopping center have closed.

A Walgreen Drug Store that opened in Waunakee a couple of years ago, replacing the popular O'Malley's Farm Cafe, was designed to keep the look of the restaurant. Flad Development even paid for an arborist to make sure a neighbor's trees would not be harmed by the construction, Waunakee village President Tim Nixon said.

"Did people lament the closing of O'Malleys? Yeah, I think they did. But the issue was -- people stopped going there" after the cafe changed hands. It later closed.

"Closed-down businesses are very bad for a downtown," Nixon said.

Walgreen's opening in Waunakee, though, may have hastened the closing of the community's Ben Franklin store. "Walgreens probably did, on some days, cost us 100 customers a day," said Phillip Willems who, with his wife, Betty, owned the Ben Franklin. But he added, "If we were younger, we would have welcomed the challenge."

Ken Kopp, meanwhile, drew fire three years ago for running a coupon in Catholic church bulletins offering a free gallon of milk to anyone who went to Mass and bought $20 of groceries at his store.

"I used to shop there and spend $100 about every 10 days or so," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, editor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation's newspaper, Freethought Today. Gaylor no longer patronizes the store because of the coupons.

Even some store supporters say Ken Kopp, who cited dwindling profits, could have drawn more business if his store stayed open past 6 p.m. weekdays and was open on Sundays.

"If a grocery did reopen there, (it) should have longer hours -- even an hour longer," said Sanford, of the Vilas Neighborhood Association.

Madison officials are among those with doubts about turning Ken Kopp's into a Walgreen Drug Store.

"There are significant issues that would have to be addressed," planning director Brad Murphy said. "Whether that's appropriate for the site is a big question."

Murphy is concerned about additional traffic, parking and hours of operation. If Walgreen runs a 24-hour-a-day drug store at the site, it would disrupt residents across the street, he said.

"At some point in the evening, people in the neighborhood expect activity to die down or cease," Murphy said.

He would like to see at least a two-story building, with offices or housing above the store.

An area that starts at UW-Madison's Camp Randall Stadium, skirts Edgewood College and borders the UW Arboretum, Monroe Street is dotted with small, locally owned businesses.

One big reason people move to the neighborhood is because they want to walk, not drive, to shop, especially for groceries.

"People really wish Ken Kopp well. He's sort of a neighborhood character in some ways," Howard Mandiville, Regent Neighborhood Association president said. "At the same time, it's a neighborhood that people really feel an investment in. Being able to walk to the grocery store is really a high priority."

Cynthia Jasper, UW-Madison professor of consumer science, said the outcry is more than just a fight to keep a neighborhood store.

"Consumers, at this point, are tired of the same products and the same stores, and I think it's a backlash."

People feel threatened by the standardization of America, she says. While there's a certain comfort level to going into a familiar store in a strange city and knowing what products to expect, people also lose some freedom of choice.

"Consumers, to a certain degree, are looking for more unique assortments of products, more interesting choices," while chain stores often sell only the products the largest number of people will buy, Jasper said.

They also want the "personal attention and service that you get in a family business."

Walgreen's, meanwhile, is on a growth spurt. "We're opening more than 500 new stores this fiscal year" with a goal of 6,000 stores by 2010, spokeswoman Carol Hively said, at corporate headquarters in Deerfield, Ill.

There are 138 Walgreen Drug Stores in Wisconsin and more than 500 in Florida. "Wisconsin is not a huge growth area right now -- we're concentrating more on the warmer climates," Hively said.

But at least one Madison neighborhood wants Walgreen. Across from South Towne Mall, in the Broadway-Waunona redevelopment area, Walgreens could help strengthen the economic turnaround, Bruer said.

Walgreen may be seen as a "curse" in some areas, Bruer said, "however in the South Towne area, Walgreens would be seen as a tremendous asset.

"It would be welcomed with open arms."

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