Supermarkets

Six people were taken to hospitals Tuesday when an irritant believed to be pepper spray was released into the air at a Ralphs supermarket in Chatsworth. Paramedics were called to the store in the 20400 block of Devonshire Street shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday after a few shoppers complained of eye irritation, said city fire spokesman Bob Collis. At least 30 people were evacuated from the market, but only six were taken to local hospitals.

Salt Lake City-based Smith's Food & Drug Centers Inc. said it will sell or lease seven of its Southern California stores, including three in Orange County, to American Stores Properties Inc. Smith's closed the stores in January, abandoning the Southern California market in the face of stiff competition from more established competitors like Lucky Stores and Ralphs Grocery. American Stores, also based in Salt Lake City, owns the Lucky chain.

A proposal for a downtown supermarket has been killed by the City Council in a 3-3 deadlock, but the project could be revived in less than two weeks when a seventh council member will be eligible to vote on the issue. Council members who voted for the project said it would bring much-needed development to a barren area "that suffers from tremendous disinvestment," said Councilman Robert L.

If they had their wish, most residents would like to see supermarkets fill some of the lots in the Pico-Union area left vacant by the 1992 riots. Almost 60% of local residents responding to a survey by RLA, formerly Rebuild L.A., said that a supermarket or grocery store is the one retail service most needed in the area. Most say they travel an average of 3 1/2 miles to get to the nearest store. Half either walk, depend on rides or use public transportation.

Los Angeles County sheriff's officials are investigating whether the suspected killers of a Glendora police officer may also have been responsible for a string of recent grocery store holdups across the San Gabriel Valley, authorities said Sunday. After at least 15 holdups during the last two months--in which victims described similar suspects and brutal tactics--law enforcement officials had been planning to stake out a few local markets Saturday night, hoping to catch the robbers.

It's fairly simple: Supermarkets would be better than vacant lots any day. In the Pico-Union area, where residents still see an abundance of vacant lots left from the 1992 riots, a supermarket or grocery store is the most needed retail service, according to a recent survey. Residents in the survey traveled an average of 3 1/2 miles to buy groceries. About half are without cars so they must walk, depend on someone else for a ride or use public transportation.

In a more perfect world, in a world where sanity and the pursuit of happiness were held more sacred, every neighborhood supermarket would have a Bart Berens. It would be part of the health code. Required by law as essential to physical fitness and the requisite mellowness needed while shopping. Sadly, however, Berens' talent is available only in a health food store. Like sun-dried macrobiotic seaweed, tofu hot dogs and wheatgrass juice, his craft is not quite ready for the mainstream at Ralphs.

\o7 I've got credit down at my grocery store, and my barber tells me jokes. . . .\f7 --Roger Miller * The Westward Ho Market in Sherman Oaks is the capital of the country that is my neighborhood. To contemplate life without it is like contemplating the Dodgers without Vin Scully, a record store without the Beatles, the modern media without arrogance. It's been the center and anchor of this little vaguely defined pocket of homey abodes and flower beds since 1963. It \o7 belongs.\f7 Not anymore.

When the Super Kmart Center opened here in November, Dan Kettridge solemnly told his wife to forget about trading in their '87 Toyota. Then the 45-year-old Ralphs market checker rushed to renew his state insurance license. And he started taking courses to be a certified financial planner. "If Super Kmart has the impact it says it will, I definitely need to have Plan B," said Kettridge, a bear of a man with a bushy mustache.