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Generic_Mustard t1_isy0yuw wrote

Reply to comment by Alone-Lobster-7405 in As Wawa shutters Center City stores, Philly DA Krasner plays defense by User_Name13

Our government (department of defense) already operates over 230 commisaries in all sorts of areas of varying safety.

Why not extend their duties to providing safe and secure access to food for low income americans?

Since it's under the DOD I'm sure funding wouldn't be a problem.

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ThunderySleep t1_isy2rfq wrote

Wait, so you want to get rid of the police, and replace them with... military?

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Generic_Mustard t1_isy3p87 wrote

No, I want to replace convenient stores and similar food desert for profit type stores with grocery stores that are owned and operated by our government, something they are actually very good at and are currently doing on some scale.

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ThunderySleep t1_isy5lqq wrote

Center city philadelphia is not a food desert. Also, Wawas don't exist in food deserts, or by definition, those places would no longer be food deserts.

Also, replacing your food supply system with a system owned and operated by the government is not an idea that has ever worked out well, for anyone. And it's been tried, many many times. It's caused many times more death and suffering than the Holocaust, and has never once worked.

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CharacterBrief9121 t1_isyf0vd wrote

A food desert can have those types of stores. What’s he’s referring to is a lack of proper grocery stores.

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ThunderySleep t1_isyh0xv wrote

Fair enough. Regardless, center city is by no means a food desert.

Food deserts are definitely a thing, but I'm not seeing how they relate to the topic at hand.

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CharacterBrief9121 t1_isyhgs3 wrote

Because he’s suggesting replacing these type of stores with a government commissary. I don’t agree with it but that’s what the guy was saying. Really what’s missing is the small time grocers. There used to be one a block or two away from where I grew up. But they’re gone or became something else that made more money.

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tr3vw t1_iszcfce wrote

There a tons of food banks for people to get free food. The issue is groups on teenagers who will come ransack places knowing they can’t really be stopped. Community will have to take a stand if they want businesses to stick around.

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ThunderySleep t1_isyijq9 wrote

Right. But center city has grocery stores, and tons of restaurants. As far as I can tell, you don't really see that many Wawas in the food-desert sort of places, and if center city isn't a food desert, I don't see it as relevant to the center city Wawas closing down.

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CharacterBrief9121 t1_isyjkdv wrote

Dudes bringing up a good point, that closing these stores will make it harder for people near those closed stores will have a harder time finding food. Which is mostly true, I’m sure some people did use it as their primary food resource. But your understanding of a food desert is flawed. I wouldn’t say restaurants are something that doesn’t make a food desert. Take for example a small town, pop less than 1,000. 2 stores in town for over 15 mi any direction. The two stores? 1 gas station/store/subway and 1 family pizza joint. Sure at both places you could spend five times as much as the ingredients would be more the same meal, but that’s also traveling the 15 miles. You could eat but at a premium. Neither of those places could you buy everything you would need to make basic meals and 2 use EBT. You can use EBT at a gas station but not for prepared/hot food. That’s a good desert but it has a “Wawa” and it has a restaurant. Do you understand what a food desert is now? You are probably closer to one than you think. I live in one myself I just have the ability and resources to drive that far to get food.

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ThunderySleep t1_isyl4z7 wrote

Technically, it's one less option, but I've lived where these locations are. There are more food options there than anywhere else I've lived, and I've been lucky enough to mostly live in nice places as an adult. Grocery stores, take-out places, casual restaurants, fine-dining, I mean everything. It's the major appeal of that area.

I totally agree food deserts area real, and philadelphia has them. And this conversation is starting making sense if imagining a general outsider perspective of X store closing in X city, but if you're familiar with the areas these stores are in it's the antithesis of a food desert. Closer to a culinary mecca. I'm talking 200+ options on grubhub, fancy coffee shops on every corner, suishi places every other block, any cuisine you can think of, etc, on top of the regular grocery stores (which are pricey, but it's an expensive area).

As for Wawa in/around philly, they're mostly in the nicer areas that aren't at all food deserts, or they're in car-traffic heavy areas, like the plaza off Deleware ave. If there were Wawas sprinkled through Grey's Ferry, I could see their point better, but I don't think food deserts are super relevant to these particular stores closing.

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CharacterBrief9121 t1_isylhao wrote

I don’t live in Philly but have been there a few times. I don’t know enough about it. But in my town when the chain groceries came in everything else died. And it was Weis and Wegmanns. Not bad stores either it just crushed any competition. Virtually the same as Walmart and small shops. Impossible to compete.

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ThunderySleep t1_isym6t2 wrote

Big box stores definitely did a number on down-town America. It's been revived some places, but mostly in nicer, kind of touristy areas that can support enough restaurants and fancier boutique shops to create foot traffic. I'm just saying, these stores in particular aren't located in what would be a food desert by anyone's definition if they saw them.

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eviljelloman t1_isyewci wrote

> Wawas don't exist in food deserts, or by definition, those places would no longer be food deserts.

Uh, wat? The entire point of a food desert is that the only options are bodegas and convenience stores, rather than proper grocery stores with produce and shit.

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ThunderySleep t1_isyhgev wrote

Wawa sells produce. Also, I can't say I've thoroughly explored every bad area of philly, but typically you see Wawas in suburbs, or in nicer parts of the city. But fair enough, I see your point.

Whatever the case, center city isn't a food desert, and I'm not seeing what food desserts have to do with Wawas closing in center city.

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generalraptor2002 t1_it1o6nm wrote

Please don’t complain when shoplifters are manhandled by the MPs. The federal government does not tolerate crime on their property.

An MP in a bad mood is the last person I’d want to tangle with. Had that experience going into an air show on an Air Force base (MP had to manually search my belongings and confiscate my $2 keychain knife, admittedly, I carry too much in my pockets).

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ScienceWasLove t1_it0az1h wrote

Who the fuck do you think provides security at these places?

There are 162 wal-marts in PA alone, 230 across the globe is nothing.

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Swi11ah t1_it06occ wrote

Wha?….They are located within military bases. Not outside them in Kensington or Compton California.

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