I am dismayed and disgusted at the dismantling of the Haggen’s grocery store chain. The whole process smells of far too much government, in this case federal government regulations. So Albertsons wants to purchase Safeway. The Federal Trade Commission says, well, that could be bordering on restraint of trade in certain markets and we have to look out for the consumers so you need to sell 168 stores so the consumers that we are protecting have choices and good prices.

So Albertsons goes out and looks for the biggest bumbling boob they can find and lo and behold, Haggen, a small regional chain with 18 stores and a new CEO (was he trying too hard to impress the board?) scooped up 146 of them. Most of us know that if you go from 18 stores on Friday afternoon to 164 stores on Monday morning you’re gonna have some growing pains and you better be ready for it. Well, they weren’t, and we all know what the end result is about to be. My wife and I are already seeing lesser generic brand items in the Haggen’s that we shop at, they don’t taste nearly as good as the Haggen brand foods and we won’t buy them.

I’d like to blame Albertsons for this but they just did what the federal government required them to do. Looks like the Federal Trade Commission really did a heck of a job asserting their regulations and keeping the consumers safe from big companies getting bigger doesn’t it? Not to turn this into politics but when you hear a candidate talking about smaller government, think about voting for that person.

Doug Godfrey

Snohomish