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After many false starts, Trader Joe's announced this week that the grocery store chain would be finally arriving in Brooklyn. The news was heralded by Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz, who was decked out in one of the store's highly visible Hawaiian print shirts and leading a steel drum band at Court St. and Atlantic Ave. The Brooklyn Paper reports that while the grocer will soon move into the landmark Independence Savings Bank building at Court and Atlantic, Brooklynites will be required to trek to Manhattan if they want their "Two-Buck Chuck" wine.
"Two-Buck Chuck" is what shoppers affectionately (or derisively) call the Charles Shaw wine that is stocked exclusively at Trader Joe's. While some may sniff at the discount brand, the winery's chardonnay was recently awarded Best California Chardonnay at the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition. So why will Trader Joe's wine fans have to travel to 14th St. in Manhattan to get their wine? New York State has a restriction on wine sales in grocery stores. The Trader Joe's on 14th St. near Union Square has a separate and distinct, albeit adjacent location, where it sells its wine. The downtown Brooklyn store won't have the same.
Things are looking up for Brooklyn shoppers. The article in the Brooklyn Paper also noted that the new Whole Foods on Houston St. in Manhattan now includes the area from Williamsburg to the southern corner of Park Slope in its delivery zone. Red Hook is excluded, perhaps due to the new installation of the waterfront Fairway. Speaking of Whole Foods, that chain's CEO finds himself at the crossroads of loving his company and technology with bizarre results and an FTC investigation.
Libertarian vegan John Mackey, who is a co-founder of Whole Foods, finds himself at the center of a somewhat bizarre situation. The New York Times reports that Mackey was identifying himself as "Rahodeb" as he posted at a Yahoo! Finance message board for years (Mackey's wife's name is Deborah).
The Wall Street Journal broke the story, noting the allegations surfaced in court filings by FTC lawyers who are attempting to block Whole Foods' acquisition of Wild Oats Markets, feeling that it would limit competition among organic groceries. Mackey, who wrote at least 1,100 posts, didn't just limit his pseudonymous comments to talking business (or smack about competitors), however. He occasionally chimed in with flattering things to say about himself: "I like Mackey’s haircut. I think he looks cute!” the CEO wrote in April of 2000.
(Photo of Marty Markowitz, by Craig Dilger for The Brooklyn Paper)
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"Red Hook is excluded, perhaps due to the new installation of the waterfront Fairway."
Red Hook is excluded 'cause no one gives a shit about Red Hook. When Fresh Direct started operating in Brooklyn they didn't deliver to Red Hook either - this was well before the Fairway opened, and ironically regardless of the fact they, Fresh Direct, had their advertisements in the bus shelters all the way down Van Brunt street.
Red Hook, despite the recent attention it's been getting, is still the poor step-child of South Brooklyn. Community Board Six rarely advocates on behalf of Red Hook residents - as seen by their support of the neighborhood vandals, IKEA. Red Hook may get a Fairway and a fancy Cruise Terminal, but access to the waterfront has not been increased - we just get more paved over parking lots ... Fairway, the Cruise Terminal and IKEA all have or will have huge asphalt parking lots eating up valuable harbor-side access. You can't even get into the Cruise Terminal to watch the ships come in and out. Would it have killed the Cruise Terminal and its' advocates to have removed a few parking spaces (many of which are NEVER used) and given the residents a small patch of green grass, some park benches to sit on, trees etc. to sit under and enjoy the harbor-side comings and goings?
Meanwhile, no-one seems to be talking about the pollution that cruise ships bring to our residents. In San Diego the cruise ships are required to hook up to the city power grid so that they don't have to run their lethal diesel engines while in port. Anyone heard of this? Anyone care? Not even our "green" mayor seems to have this one on the radar.
In addition we can look forward to more cancer and asthma producing fumes from the increased IKEA traffic.
Maybe one day Red Hook will be given the same careful attention the rest of South Brooklyn has been afforded, and that "red line" on the delivery routes, and in the consciousness of our community representatives and elected officials, will be erased.
The headline makes no sense. ("Embargo on Brooklyn Trader Joe's Wine") Yes, NY has stupid, protectionist laws that prevent wine from being sold in grocery stores. But that's not an "embargo".
It's not even two buck chuck here like it is in other cities. It's $3.