Long before banks started locating branches inside supermarkets, grocery stores acted as informal financial establishments, cashing payroll checks and personal checks to provide ready cash for their customers. That's starting to change.
Whole Foods Market Inc. is considering banning the use of personal checks at its stores and this month stopped accepting checks at two stores in Los Angeles County and one in Arizona as a test.
Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, the California division of British retailing giant Tesco, won't take personal checks at any of the 70 stores it operates in California.
"Supermarkets used to be a repository of checking, cashing payroll and personal checks, but in an age of direct deposit and debit cards, that's not something that is relevant to their customers anymore," said Mac Brand, a Chicago food industry consultant.
The heads of these chains see check processing as a time-consuming and expensive service at a time when the industry is looking to drive down business costs, he said. But such a move carries risk.
"Every time you take something away, you run the risk of severing your relationship with a customer," Brand said.
Such policies would irritate shopper Kerry Showalter of Newbury Park, he said.
"Grocery stores are a dime a dozen. If the Albertsons where I shop stopped accepting checks, I would just go to Vons," he said.
The computer industry sales executive said he uses checks to buy groceries as method of keeping "a budget under control."
He said he's bothered by using debit and credit cards -- which he said are not actual representations of money -- on perishables such as groceries. The physical act of writing a check makes shoppers think more carefully about their purchases, he said.
It would also be hard on many seniors, who have been slow to adopt the use of debit cards, said Gail Hillebrand, a lawyer and financial services expert for the nonprofit Consumers Union.
But a widespread move by the grocery industry to ban personal checks would not upset other shoppers such as Sharon Fern of Placentia.
"I haven't written or carried a checkbook in many years," she said. "Wouldn't bother me a bit." Debit cards are far more convenient, she said.
"The money comes write out of my account and saves a lot of time over writing a check," Fern said.
Vons, Albertsons and Ralphs -- the stores most likely to have a bank branch within their locations -- continue to accept checks.
