Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Remodeling work continues on the inside and outside of the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue to get the supermarket ready for re-opening in the East Buffalo community.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown had the opportunity to tour the Tops on Tuesday and get a first-hand look at the progress being made on the store, as it is on schedule to re-open to the neighborhood some time in late July. He says the work done by Tops so far has been "very impressive" as they look to completely change the look and feel of the store more than six weeks after the racially motivated mass shooting that took killed 10 Black people and wounded three others.
"One of the things that I heard from [Tops President and COO] John Persons and his staff is that they really wanted to listen to the community, they did listen to the community," said Mayor Brown during a press event at the Apollo Theatre. "They listened to customers, they listened to employees, they really have integrated everything that they heard from the community into how they have re-designed the store. That's a great thing. This is a difficult situation. People are still mourning, people are still hurting, and I think, though, Tops has done everything that they can do to listen to the community, to respect the wishes of the community, and to re-design the store in a way that not only has a new look and feel, but gives people many more products than they were able to purchase at the store previously."
Related
Despite the folks from Tops continuing work to renovate the supermarket in an effort to re-open the store, there continues to be mixed reactions from members of the East Buffalo community on whether or not it should re-open.
"At first I was saying that, 'Oh, you know, it'd be good. We need to rebuild the building.' But I'm just having mixed emotions," said resident Carlina Jones on Tuesday. "I just hope that they'll be able to have a memorial place for the victims, give us a market and do things to better suit the community and everybody who comes and shops at this location."
While some residents feel uncertain whether or not to re-open the store on Jefferson Avenue, other residents like Joyce Jackson understands the importance of having the supermarket open once again for the neighborhood.
"It's needed in the community," said Jackson on Tuesday. "As any community, you need a place to shop, especially for food. I know it will be a blessing re-opening. I just pray and hope that everyone is able to receive it. I pray that it will be different, feel different inside, but one thing we do know is that the tragedy, the murders that has taken place will never be forgotten. So I think it's good to re-open in a different light."
On the other side of the spectrum, there are plenty of others in the community, including residents and community activists, that feel the store should not be re-opened and should be dedicated as a permanent memorial site for the people who lost their lives that fateful Saturday.
"It is a travesty, and adding insult to injury to continue to re-traumatize my community, of which I am one of them, by even talking about re-opening that and have it work in any other capacity as a store," said Deacon Jerome Wright, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for VOICE Buffalo on Tuesday.
Deacon Wright has openly called for the Tops on Jefferson Avenue to not re-open in the past. He is hoping to see the building completely demolished and made into a longstanding memorial to the fallen victims of the mass shooting and to the East Buffalo community.
Related
"I'm not speaking as solo," Wright said. "I'm telling you, when I go to the post office to get a money order, a guy says he saw me on the news and he applauded me for doing it. He says he lives down the block, and he doesn't want it opened. One of the workers who, thankfully, was late to work that day says she doesn't want to go back in there. So who's telling us that all these people want to go back in there? I don't know."
When Mayor Brown entered the Tops on Jefferson Avenue on Tuesday, he admitted that he did feel some trepidation and concern going back in for the first time since the May 14 mass shooting. However, he said it was helpful for him to see that the store had looked different than it looked previously. He's hoping that will be the case for others who decide to step foot back into the supermarket when it re-opens to the community next month.
"It's going to be hard," Jones said of going back to the Tops. "I'm hoping that the building, itself, will reflect on us going to shop, and also the victims. I don't know how they're going to incorporate that. But I believe that I will give it a shot, just because, if not because of them, to show the people who did this I'm not afraid. So I probably would, and I will hope that when I go in there, it will settle well, that I will continue to shop."
For the people who do not feel comfortable returning to the Tops once it re-opens, many have been calling for another store to open in the neighborhood in close vicinity to the Jefferson Avenue location.
For Deacon Wright, that's one of his goals going forward, is to help influence another stores like Aldi, ShopRite, Super Price Choppers, or Wegmans to open up shop in the East Buffalo community. Part of the reasoning is not only provide more options for the residents in the community, but also to avoid another situation where the community is targeted in a similar attack as the one on May 14.
"We didn't solve anything by re-opening that store. Matter of fact, we're opening a bigger wound, and we're putting in a place that the next guy who wants to copycat, the next coward who wants to copycat that will come to that same store, no matter what's the name on it, because that'll be the only store in that neighborhood where all of my people go," Wright said. "And that ain't just for shopping. It's for banking, it's for socializing in some respects, because we don't have a lot of places to go in this community."
"I've been here for 22 years now. For many years, I never understood why there was never another supermarket here. Not just supermarket, but businesses on the East Side," Jackson added. "My undergrad is in business and accounting, and I still never rationalized with the thought of businesses not being here on the East Side because they would not profit from it. So most of all, I hope that it's a rude awakening for my people, for black people, to understand business, period, a little more. Even myself, even [being an] undergrad 40 years ago, that businesses do not believe they will be profitable being here on the East Side. Is it needed? Yes, it's needed."
When asked about the possibility of reaching out to other stores about potentially opening up a location in the East Buffalo community, Mayor Brown confirmed that they are reaching out and gauging interest.
Since the Tops on Jefferson Avenue was shut down due to the mass shooting on May 14, many people have used the term "food desert" when classifying what happened to the community as a result of the supermarket closing. When the store shut its doors, it left many members of the East Buffalo community without a source of food and other essential goods to get by on a daily basis.
To help combat that effort, many people have donated their extra goods and brought in food and other supplies to food distribution centers and other mobile sites to help those residents remain feed and properly supplied.
While there are other stores in the general area surrounding the Tops on Jefferson, they may not be able to supply the community what they truly need.
In the discussion of reaching out to other businesses to potentially open up shop in the East Buffalo community, Mayor Brown says that the neighborhood is not technically experiencing a "food desert".
"There are other supermarket and shopping options in the immediate area," he explained. "There's a pharmacy in the Tops on Jefferson Avenue. Tops created a system where they could deliver to people that wanted delivery, and they also set up pharmacy options at their Tops on Elmwood Avenue. They have filled thousands of prescriptions at the Tops on Elmwood Avenue from customers that used to use this store on Jefferson Avenue. What that says is people are able to get to that other store. So while we are concerned about making things as convenient [for] people as possible, and we are reaching out to other stores, are talking to other stores, we think that there will be options in the neighborhood in 14208 that people will be able to access that don't want to go back to the Tops on Jefferson Avenue."
Upon hearing of the comments made by the Mayor on Tuesday, Deacon Wright agreed with it not being a "food desert", but mentioned another term when describing what's happening to the community.
"A desert implies a natural ecological event. That's not what happened on the East Side. That is a planned gentrification, red line, 'don't benefit that neighborhood' plan. That's what we call a 'food apartheid'. And anything they're doing right now does not ameliorate that situation," Deacon Wright explained.
"The Mayor of Buffalo was saying that there's no food problems going on here, the 'food apartheid' is not going on here, and that opening that store is the best thing for this community. I don't know what type of leadership that is, and that's not leadership that I'm willing to follow."
Meanwhile, residents of East Buffalo are not exactly sure of what to call what's happened to the community since the mass shooting, when it comes to a "food desert".
"I don't know if that's the right term, but I will definitely tell you that it's a lot, right. With that being a lot, we need something to be supplied so therefore it won't be," Jones said. "Regardless if we call it a desert or whatever, we do know that it's a lot. We do know that it was a thriving place, at one time, and it's not no more. So whatever we want to call it, at the end of the day, we're lacking in this community. We've been lacking many things for a long time now. It's sad that this right here has to bring attention to the community not being nourished and not having things."
"Some individuals have vehicles where they can travel from Point A to Point B, and then you have those who are less fortunate who have no choice but to walk. You should be able to shop and walk in your community. If this is the only supermarket - I think it has been eye-opening for the community - then in terms of a 'food desert', then yes, that's exactly what it is if there's not another supermarket here," Jackson added.
So what's next for Deacon Wright's stance to keep the Tops location on Jefferson Avenue from opening its doors again? He says he's starting a petition to not open the store.
"I am going to be standing in front of it myself, if they try to open this store, because that is the worst thing they could do this community. What they should be doing is tearing that down," Wright said.
"I've been in this community for 13, almost 14 years. I've watched the growth of Buffalo, and I watched the continued decline of the East Side. Why is that? This massacre is just a dramatization of what's going on in that community. We are being gunned down by white supremacy, racism, unemployment, unemployability, education, prison, addiction, mental health. Nobody's talking about that. We want to talk about opening up a store that's going to re-create more mental health issues."
As for his initiatives with the petition, he has three plans that he hopes to better improve the community. The first is to get the Tops location torn down and leveled out to make for a permanent memorial site for the victims. Another initiative is to get more stores to come to the East Buffalo community to provide more options for residents.
The third initiative for the neighborhood is to help residents with the assistance of a national organization that will show the community how to grow their own garden.
"They're going to provide the seeds and the training for people to have their own gardens, to build they own fruit. This is free, and being donated as a gift to this City," Deacon Wright said. "They are going to come here, and this summer, the entire East Side will be blooming with fresh fruits and vegetables. So you won't be able to call it a 'food apartheid' no more, because we're going to take control of that land and make it work for us."
Wright did not want to give anymore details of the organization, because he wants them to be the ones to make the statement on it.
And when it comes to the thoughts that it would take up to 2-3 years to build and open a new Tops location in the East Buffalo community, Wright doesn't believe it would take a project like that long at all.
"I can tell you emphatically that is not true," he said. "We watched this country build hospitals that need more highly technologically precision material than refrigeration and an ATM, banking services. You can't tell me that. With all the well-being from this country, from the world, we'd have the resources and the manpower to do it in record time. If that was the goal, and that ain't the goal. The goal is status quo. Well, I'm telling you, the motto for 2022 from VOICE, from my voice, is 'The status quo has got to go.' We ain't going forward no more."