Proposed Lucky Store Spurs War of Petitions

VENTURA —  It started out as a disagreement between some concerned neighbors and Lucky Stores, which is trying to open a supermarket near Ventura College.

But in the past week it has escalated into an all-out war aggressively waged in the suburban parking lots of east Ventura.

“It’s not a war of attrition, it’s a war of petition,” said an incredulous Patrick VanHorn. “It’s just so absurd that it has gotten to this point.”

VanHorn said he and other neighborhood residents were doing a petition drive, “mostly a door to door, friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor kind of thing” to voice opposition to the Lucky project.

Lucky Stores Inc. has a proposal before city planners to build a 52,298-square-foot, full-service grocery store on Telegraph Road, across from Ventura College. The chain supermarket would be the second largest in Ventura, open 24 hours a day, with 212 parking places.

Residents have argued repeatedly that the supermarket would generate traffic, noise and air pollution. They also say that a Lucky store is unnecessary because there are already three major supermarkets within a five-minute drive.

Realizing the fierce neighborhood opposition, Lucky hired a petition-gathering firm. Now, in the parking lots of Albertson’s, Vons, Ralphs and Trader Joe’s, the Lucky petitioners have set up shop.

Stunned neighborhood activists say the professional petition gatherers hired by Lucky are armed with bullhorns and that their tables deceptively advertise voter registration. They also complain of aggressive campaigning that has resulted in at least six police complaints filed in the past week.

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The reports include complaints of a man at Albertson’s with a bullhorn, a pony-tailed woman who blocked customers’ entrance to Albertson’s until they signed her petition, and one from a Lucky petitioner who claimed the Ralphs manager assaulted him when he refused to leave.

The Lucky chain’s petition states: “We the undersigned residents of the city of San Buenaventura, California, hereby support the development of a Lucky grocery store proposed for the southwest corner of Telegraph Road and Day Road in Ventura.”

The petition then lists eight points describing the benefits it claims that the Lucky store will bring, including charitable contributions, feeding the hungry and improving the streetscape and nearby barranca.

Astounded neighbors, receiving reports of the professional competition, rushed out to set up tables of their own, but say they have been accosted by belligerent Lucky petitioners.

On Tuesday, VanHorn’s wife, Wendy, went to the local post office, and when she saw a Lucky petitioner, she told her neighbor he was from Lucky.

“Then [the Lucky petitioner] started shouting at me,” she said. “He started telling people I was from Vons.”

A Lucky representative, who declined to be identified, met with community leaders and city officials in Ventura on Thursday. She confirmed that the chain has hired a petition management firm, but said she was contractually prohibited from releasing the firm’s name.

“Often the opposition is very vocal, but the support is not vocal,” she said, explaining the rationale behind the Lucky petition drive. “We know we have support in the community.”

She said that although Lucky officials have raised concerns about the pushy petitioning incidents, her trip was not prompted by them.

She met with Councilman Jim Friedman on Thursday morning, and Patrick VanHorn and fellow neighborhood activist Carol Cole met with the councilman immediately afterward.

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Friedman said the Lucky representative showed him assorted design plans for the store and an aerial photo of the area, and presented him with a copy of a 1996 traffic study. They did not discuss the hired petitioners.

But Friedman himself was snagged by a petitioner in front of a Sav-on drugstore.

“It was a very unpleasant experience,” he said.

Friedman said the man told him he lived in Ventura, on “Polis” Street.

“I said, ‘You mean Poli Street?’ ” Friedman recalled. “I said that I resented that he was posing as a member of the community espousing the benefits of the Lucky store, when he lied to me about himself and the benefits the Lucky store would bring. Including feeding the hungry. Can you believe that? . . . Then he started arguing.”

Friedman expressed concerns about the environmental aspects of the project and believes further study is needed.

Mayor Jack Tingstrom, on the other hand, said the project should be dropped because the supermarket is inappropriate for that lot.

“Rather than trying to fit a size 13 foot into a size 6 shoe, they should look somewhere else” in the city, he said Thursday.

Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures, who met with the Lucky representative last week, said she has yet to make up her mind. But she believes the traffic improvements proposed by the grocery chain will ease congestion in the area.

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The City Council will consider a set of measures May 19 designed to reduce the environmental impacts of the Lucky project.

Neighbors say they will be on hand to present approximately 2,000 signatures opposing the project. Lucky officials said they, too, plan to present their petition at that time.

But Friedman, for one, is skeptical of the paid petition drive.

“I will tell you that if Lucky thinks that I am going to be swayed by hundreds and hundreds, or thousands and thousands of signatures they gathered from paid signature gatherers, they are sadly mistaken,” he said.

Friedman said his main reason for opposing the project, however, is that it will not generate any new tax revenue for the city--it will merely divert revenue from existing area supermarkets.

The signature gatherers could not be spotted in east Ventura on Thursday. But the Lucky representative said she did not think the petition drive was over.

“We are gauging the pulse of the community,” she said. “How long we need to be out there depends on the response we get.”