Food fight follows immigration clash

Food fight follows immigration clash
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Food fight follows immigration clash

Web Posted: 03/15/2007 10:51 PM CDT

Thomas Korosec
Houston Chronicle

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA031607.01B.food_fight.36147c5.html

DALLAS — The suburb of Farmers Branch, divided for the past six months over illegal immigration, has found something else touchy to fight over: the flavor of the local supermarket.

Word that Minyards Food Stores is considering moving a Hispanic-oriented Carnival supermarket into an empty building in the center of town has further roiled a city that has been debating whether to impose local measures to curb illegal immigration.

A new divide has formed, largely along ethnic lines, over whether the new store should be a traditional market or one aimed at Hispanic customers.

"It would be great if we could get a store in there that caters to all kinds of people, not just a Korean grocery or a Hispanic grocery," said Tom Bohmier, a leader of Support Farmers Branch, a group that backs a ban on renting apartments to undocumented immigrants that will go before voters this spring.

Elizabeth Villafranca, head of the Farmers Branch chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said opposition to a Carnival by Anglo residents shows "they aren't just against illegal immigrants. They're against minorities and poor people living in their city."

A Carnival store would be ideal in a city that's 40 percent Hispanic, said Villafranca, who owns a Mexican restaurant across the street from the potential location.

At a newly opened Carnival flagship store in Dallas' Oak Cliff section, items such as pigs' heads, beef lips, chicken feet, cactus and Mexican fruit drinks share space with common domestic brands. Signs are in Spanish, with English translations below.

In Farmers Branch, backers of a local crackdown on undocumented immigrants repeatedly have stressed they're concerned about legality, not ethnicity.

Last fall, however, the council passed a resolution making English the city's official language. And one council member, Ben Robinson, said earlier this year he was concerned an immigrant "invasion" was changing and fragmenting the city's culture.

Poul Heilmann, a spokesman for Coppell-based Minyards, declined to confirm whether the company was interested in the Farmers Branch location. He said residents have been contacting the company, but he wouldn't specify how many.

Villafranca said a Minyards official told her the chain is interested in opening a Farmers Branch store and has heard from numerous residents opposed to a Carnival. She said the company told her it was logging the calls.

"They've been organized," she said of the Carnival opponents.

Two fliers being circulated in the city take issue with the prospect of Carnival moving in, including one that says the store would clash with the city's plans to attract "development that everyone would be proud to call the center of the city."

Villafranca said she's trying to counter the message that a Carnival wouldn't be welcome and this week began a campaign to attract the market.

"We already have an American store, a Kroger. It makes sense to add a Carnival," Villafranca said. A traditional supermarket at that location closed last spring, leaving the city of 27,000 residents with one major food store.

Tim O'Hare, the council member who began the anti-illegal immigrant push last August, said Minyards has not made a formal proposal to the city. The City Council has the power to approve what store opens at that location, he said.

O'Hare's measure to ban the renting of apartments to undocumented immigrants passed the council unanimously in November. But it was withdrawn in January and replaced by a slightly revised measure that must be approved by voters in May.

Minyards, which has stores in the Dallas area and Ohio, has been closing traditional stores and expanding its Carnival line. The company announced in January that it was concentrating its growth on Carnival because of North Texas' fast-growing Hispanic population.

Twenty-two of its 65 supermarkets are Carnival stores, the company says.