The season of instant experts descends upon us.
ShopRite’s decision to close its West Hartford store next week has caused unhappy analysts from politics to announce how much they know about the grocery business.
The operators of the store said in a statement that they “struggled to make the store profitable” despite doing many things right. They continued, “A challenging business climate impacted by rising costs, regulations and the new minimum wage increase led to the difficult decision to close our doors on Nov. 26.”
Grocery stores are not in the business of closing profitable stores. When they say several factors, including a rising minimum wage, caused them to decide to close the West Hartford store, I believe them. They are in the thick of the competitive grocery store business in an expensive state.
A couple of Senate Democrats would have us think they know more about the retail grocery business than the people in it. Democratic State Sen. Julie Kushner, of Danbury, pooh-poohed the impact of the minimum wage. “This money that goes right back in the economy,” she told The Courant. The 132 ShopRite workers who are losing their jobs will be relieved to know that.
Another insight on the grocery business came from Senate Democrat Saud Anwar of South Windsor. He pointed out that ShopRite’s Canton store may be more profitable and, as reported in The Courant, “criticized the company for using the minimum wage to justify its business decision.” The higher minimum wage increases the cost of doing business because of math, not politics.
Anwar is a doctor. Health care is also a competitive business, but it is different from operating a grocery store. We would not look to the operators of ShopRite to explain, for example, why Manchester Memorial Hospital gets a worrying one out of five stars rating from Medicare while St. Francis Hospital received a more reassuring four-star rating.
The operators of ShopRite appeared to take no pleasure in telling us the rising cost of doing business made it impossible for them to carry on in West Hartford. We should thank them for their candor.
This syndrome contributes to the trust deficit between the public and our elected officials. Gov. Ned Lamont did not create it, but he must address it, as he seems poised to reveal a revised transportation plan.
Almost no one believes money from tolls will go to pay for roads and bridges. Bitter experience informs us. Whatever happened to the hundreds of millions of dollars Connecticut received from the tobacco settlement? Almost none of it went to smoking prevention or cessation programs. If it had gone to pay for medical costs for people who smoked, we might not have an enormous hospital tax.
Connecticut’s elected leaders shoveled it into the general budget to try to fill the deficits that continue to vex us — and make it expensive to do business here. They have done the same with money raised from the energy conservation charge on utility bills. The money goes into a dedicated fund, and lately the legislature grabs millions from it to pay for everything but energy conservation.
We know from our own experience that energy conversation is important in our modern society. Our elected officials enjoy some virtue signaling by attaching a fee to utility bills to fund energy conservation projects of varying sizes. And then they go and spoil it all by taking the money to balance the budget that keeps getting away from them year after dismaying year.
We can expect that one day soon we will see a national settlement of claims against opioid manufacturers. Perhaps some of their enablers will also be brought into a broad resolution. Oklahoma, a leader in opioid litigation, settled its claim against Purdue Pharma in March on the eve of trial for $270 million.
The money is to be used for addiction research and services, as well as the state’s legal fees. Oklahoma won an initial $572 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson. The judge who ruled for Oklahoma estimated the money would pay for a year’s worth of services in the addiction-ravaged state. Political leaders in other states took note of the Oklahoma results but do not expect them to dedicate it all to drug prevention and treatment.
Our spending experts always find other things to do with the money.
Kevin Rennie is a lawyer and a former Republican state legislator. He can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com.
