Comments

1
Did you ask anyone at the store about this? The Safeway at 15th and John had handle-less paper bags until this year. When I inquired, they just said that some stores get them and others don't.
2
The Safeway in Lower Queen Anne didn't have handles last time I was there either.
3
@1
Your response to ask the store is far too obvious, commonsensical.
No good reporter would do that.
Much better to make up story and get people pissed off...aids to motivate troops in War on Kapitalizm.
4
1) I did ask and got the same answer, which is meaningless.
5
I'm not so much happy with those flimsy paper handles. Don't trust them. I've been burned too many times.
6
Personally, I bring my own bag because I feel humiliated on my walk home when I advertise whatever grocery store I've just been to.
7
These handles are not an advantage. They are useless and a trap. Anything heavy and fragile, like a fine bottle of red wine is most likely to end up shattered on the sidewalk if you are seduced by the false promise of these handles. The handleless bag, humble to be sure, invites support from the bottom. This is the only righteous way to carry groceries.
8
@4
Then ask HQ in wherever-they-are-based.
It is an interesting question i.e. how stores make decisions.
They may have (and I bet they do) have a totally non-race-based decision.
Maybe something to do with gender bias.
Do they charge 5 cents for a bag in both stores?
9
Trolling...
10
Black and poor people suffer the most in the name of progress. Consider yourself lucky you're not forced to buy your vegetables from a convenience store.
11
@7
You carry your own groceries?
Sheesh.
12
Is this posting an elaborate internet troll designed to provoke a response? Surely this cannot be what it appears to be. But on the off-chance that it is:

1) For as long as I can remember, paper grocery bags have never had handles. Of course, I haven't seen many paper bags at all over the last several years. But back into the '70s and '80s, the default paper bag was the top one. Somehow, we managed to get everything home.

2) Before immediately jumping to "OMG RACISM!!!!!!", let's consider a few other options. Maybe the first store had a larger stock of handle-less paper bags to run through before restocking with the newer ones. Maybe the store manager is just making a different decision for his or her store, saving a little bit on bags and putting that money towards something else. Or maybe it's their aesthetic choice. They do have some latitude.

The one thing that really seems highly unlikely to me is that the EVIL Safeway executives are sitting around a highly polished round table, in their black hoods and masks in a darkened room, rubbing their hands and stroking their Persian cats and saying, "How can we stick it to the black man today? I know! Let's give them handleless paper bags! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
13
Or maybe you should just complain to the store manager. Call Safeway's customer service hotline. Talk to the checkout people.
14
Charles isn't a reporter, he's a mystical troll.

And calling him lazy is clearly racist.
15
In Spokane (where plastic bags are still legal and paper bags are still free of charge*) one of the major chains uses paper bags with those handles. They are incredibly strong as long as you don't pull them in the wrong direction - - - see where it says "pull up, not out"? Pull up and the bag will tear before the handle gives way; pull out and it comes right off. I'm pretty sure they are magical.

*(but you do get a 5-cent discount if you bring your own bag)
17
The safeway at 22nd and Madison has the handle-less bags too. They suck just as much as the bags with handles. @7 is right, they're just a trap.
18
I know it's an overused phrase but this is a classic first world problem.
19
Amanda Knox probably has something to do with this.
20
It must be so comforting to go through life as Charles does, seeing every tiny detail as complete confirmation of one's worldview.
23
The Rainier Safeway has a huge parking lot and is far from the street, the Capitol Hill Safeway is in the middle of a very urban street that has much more foot traffic. The handle-less bags have generally been the default at stores that are trafficked by people driving cars because they are cheaper and it doesn't much matter. At a store where the percentage of people walking is likely to be higher it is probably seen as worth the extra cost to keep people happier and to stop complaints.
25
12) i actually think the handleless paper bags are great. they should not take them away. i and others have them to thank for improving our shopping habits.
26
Chuck,
"The former bag is practically useless because it has, unlike the latter, handles."

So having handles makes the former bag practically useless?
How so?
27
The Ballard store still had the handleless bags before I moved away. Aside from being less convenient, they also seem to be more flimsy. The bags with handles seem to be made with thicker paper.
Also, could it be possible that the Rainier store has yet to run out of the old ones?
28
@26, i fixed that. sorry.
29
@5, @7, y'all are crazy. The handles work perfectly. I've had exactly one break on me in what, twenty years? Pull up, not out.

The Safeway at 87th and Greenwood gives out handleless bags. It's a pretty diverse neighborhood as well.
30
Survey more stores. Two data points aren't enough to draw a conclusion. But you may have a point. What may be occurring may be due to management and profit margins. It would be interesting to see if other conveniences of these stores are worse since they don't expect minorities to complain.

I think you have a really important point here but that you are doing a shitty way of explaining it. In general, the services that poorer people and minorities pay the same amount tend to be worse. Go to poor parts of town and you will see more streetlights out, more sidewalks in need of repair, more public grass unmowed, etc. Go to the stores and restaurants and you will see that they are less clean and the service is worse even though you pay the same money. It is unacceptable. Safeway bags are a pretty poor example (there could be many reasons for the difference), but the general point is valid.
31
My Safeway, in a very diverse neighborhood, has handles on the bags. But, for all those who find handles a negative attribute, here's a thought -- leave them folded down and hold the bag from underneath like the rest of us do. Or is that too easy a solution for a race/class-based first world dweller's rant?
32
I think comparing two Safeways in only two neighborhoods in unscientific and misleading. Not worth writing a story about. Most safeways I visit do not have handles. Visit all Safeways, ask store managers, write to corporate, then report back. Reporting 101.
34
Those paper handles make me paranoid. I've never trusted them. I always, ALWAYS, carried paper bags by the bottom, regardless of whether or not they had handles. Mind you, I've been religiously using my own bags for years now, so it doesn't really matter.

The mildly racist implication may be true, but probably accidental. Surely the bags with the handles cost more to produce than the handle-less bags. Maybe not much, but at least a small difference. So Safeway deliberately chose to put the more expensive bags in one store and the cheaper bags in the other. Likely it wasn't intentionally racist, but based on which store was more profitable or some such accounting reason.
35
@12 One of the great privileges of being white, is basking in the notion that the only racism is the kind where some evil person holds denigrating or oppressive thoughts and schemes.
36
What #7 said. The flimsy glue holding those handles to the paper is not to be trusted. And to attribute this to racism is just so very weird. Get a grip (haha).
37
Up next, in grocery bag racism: QFC putting handle bags on the floor of self checkouts in predominantly black neighborhoods. Meanwhile, self checkouts in white neighborhoods get the bags put on top of the machines.
38
I have noticed the crappy paper bags at the Safeway on Rainier too! It's really a pain because the bags are really inconvenient if you happen to be walking or taking public transit to the store. But the QFC just up the street does have handles! As a South Side resident, I've noticed that we've become accustomed to things just being a bit crappier and not having the time or energy to complain about things.
39
@28
Chuck... Now you're just stuttering: "The former bag is practically useless because it has, unlike the latter, it has no handles."

Shouldn't smoke so much first thing in the AM.
40
Ha. The 15th and John Safeway had the handle-less bags for a long time after the plastic bag ban, and it was a super pet peeve of mine. I complained a bunch since I walk to the grocery store. Then for awhile I could only get them by request if I went to a manned checkout line. Now we have them, even at self checkout. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, I guess.

5 cent bags with handles for all!
41
Actual reporting < clickbait worthy Slog Post

Seattle's ONLY newspaper.

42
If you believe the business is taking on the extra cost of making sure stores in minority neighborhoods (have to pay people to keep a census and watch trends as well of course) have "inferior" bags, well...bless your heart.
43
Yet another case of the white man keeping the black man down.

@fnarf: I've had exactly one break on me in what, twenty years?

These bag handles were specifically engineered to break as soon as you reach the parking lot while carrying 2 bottles of wine or a 6-pack of beer.
44
@43, You must be doing it wrong. Six-packs, bottles, cans of refried beans, pickle jars, you name it. Never a problem. Pull up, not out.
45
Everyone need to get on the rez with the rest of us.

The Green Urbanization Myth

Suburban Sprawl and Self-Driving Cars May Reverse Land Sparing Efforts

Thanks to decoupling, the low-density metro areas will probably become even bigger and even less dense. As farmland on the periphery of metro areas is retired from agriculture, much of it will be converted into cheap housing, low-rent office parks and inexpensive production facilities.


http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/voi…
46
Here in the other Washington, the population is half black. Our Safeways have only plastic bags. They cost a nickel, and they always have handles.

Let the conclusion-drawing begin.
47
@39, or juggle too much work in the morning. we live in a time when we do too many things at once.
48
This is a perfect Mudede post. Reading way too far into a small difference, feigning vast complexity, then an update showing that the simplest explanation was actually the correct one.
49
I don't think this is a racism thing. There are a couple of QFCs in the northend that have the handless bags by default, and if you want the ones with handles, you have to stoop down and rummage around below the self-check automabot and find them. So maybe it's biased against old people, or people with back injuries?
50
The Safeways have individual budgets. I.E. the store serving a lower income group has less revenue then the store serving the higher income group and invests less in bags. I've never seen the bags without the handles at any Safeway in San Francisco, but it's common knowledge that Safeways vary in quality within the city depending on the location. Head to higher income areas and their Safeways and you find more premium coffee, more kombucha, more organic produce, etc. If you want change at your local grocery store, you'll probably have to just do some good old fashioned complaining and threatening to take your business elsewhere. I.E. behave like a consumer who has choices about where you spend your money.
51
My PCC cloth bags, purchased 17 years ago, are still in great shape. They may well have been loaded with groceries 1,000 times each by now.
52
@38, this my general feeling about the south end, which is why i was being a little lighthearted about the matter. on a more serious tip: that rainier safeway seems to be always in need of more staff.
53
Portland banned plastic bags a while back and my local Safeway (in a white neighborhood) used the handless paper bags for close 6 months before complaints forced the manager to switch to paper bags with handles.

A major part of the reason for this is that Safeway is ANAL when it comes to "bagging performance" by stores. How much the store spent on bags and how many were used were a critical measures for store managers in determining bonuses and opportunities for promotion. The bags without handles cost the stores a lot less and Safeway had not updated its performance formula to reflect the fact that some stores were prohibited from using plastic. Ergo, managers were using handless bags in an effort to meet performance targets.
54
Mudede, you are a completely useless cuntpuddle.
55
@41. 4 comments on the morning news, 50 here, I guess the masses know what they want.
56
Maybe the Safeway on Rainier goes through fewer bags (and so is less likely to be out of the old style, yet) because people are less willing to pay for the convenience of them at that store? If that's the case, you can blame your precious bag-ban law, which implemented the bag fee in the first place.
57
I had worked for Safeway pharmacy and in their
Corporate offices in Phoenix,AZ. After spending
15 years of my life working there I can say with confidence
that Safeway is both Cheap and Racist!! I witnessed their racism
in their Corporate Offices. I could count the number of black and other
Minorities on one hand... And that's with 2 fingers amputated!!
They are all about keeping their costs down and wages low!!, so
when I hear they were bought out recently by the same
Investment company that owns Albertsons Stores
Expect it to get worse not better! Handle less bags are just the beginning,
Thanks Charles for making us more aware of Safeway's
evil ways as they write their racism off as cost cutting measures
58
Charles,
I like your post very much because you bring up such a tiny little part of life -- shopping bags! -- and give us a chance to discuss. Thx!
Not joking at all.
59
I had worked for Safeway pharmacy and in their
Corporate offices in Phoenix,AZ. After spending
15 years of my life working there I can say with confidence
that Safeway is both Cheap and Racist!! I witnessed their racism
in their Corporate Offices. I could count the number of black and other
Minorities on one hand... And that's with 2 fingers amputated!!
They are all about keeping their costs down and wages low!!, so
when I hear they were bought out recently by the same
Investment company that owns Albertsons Stores
Expect it to get worse not better! Handle less bags are just the beginning,
Thanks Charles for making us more aware of Safeway's
evil ways as they write their racism off as cost cutting measures
60
THANK you for this Charles. This was a huge topic of conversation on the Columbia City Facebook page, and YES many community members have contacted Safeway, spoken to managers and employees, on and on. It's a real thing.
61
I guess that means the store on 35th and 75th must hate since they just started to use the the bags with handles about a month ago

Why do they give you a paycheck Charles?
62
Both bags include the greenwash "Sustainable Forestry Initiative" claim, so at least Safeway is an equal opportunity greenwasher.
63
Your headline is reverse-racist. Black people aren't the only people shopping in south end Safeway stores.
64
I refer my haters to @60...
65
All Safeways that I visited seemed to have the super-thin handle-less paper bags before the bag ban. I considered this their attempt to push the cheaper plastic bags. But once the bag ban came in: slowly, store by store I've seen Safeways change to the handled variety. I'll bet this makes customers feel better about their $0.05 cost.

I see very little reason for there to be a race connection in which stores switch first. I suppose it's possible, but would be pretty bizarre if it were true. Extraordinary theories require extraordinary evidence, and as pointed out above you've only provided two data points. And when you asked, you were given an explanation that fits much, much better with any non-paranoid model of reality: that they just had more non-handle bags to work through (or lower number of customers asking for bags).

You're welcome to keep believing this is racism, but it harms your credibility unless you have some other data you haven't shared.
66
@20 nailed it. The quality of any given grocery store is the manager and the staff.
67
Charles - is there a way to link or share parts of the original FB conversation in the CC group? I'm assuming you have seen it - I can try to dig it up to post in comments this afternoon.
68
For what it's worth, when the bag fee/ban was first implemented the Albertsons around 130th and Aurora suddenly had none of those plastic carry-around shopping containers at all. I inquired where I could find one for shopping in the store and was told they all were stolen by customers within a few days and they had none to offer.
69
What a stupid sensationalist title. As a mixed race person with African, Asian and European ancestry, I feel the need to point out that "the most diverse zip code in the country" is mostly Asian, then White, the Black in that order. The Stranger should know better.

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tabl…

70
What a stupid sensationalist title. As a mixed race person with African, Asian and European ancestry, I feel the need to point out that "the most diverse zip code in the country" is mostly Asian, then White, the Black in that order. The Stranger should know better.

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tabl…
71
@60, how do I add myself to the Columbia City Facebook page ? I can't seem to find it on Facebook. Link please.
72
Wedgwood Safeway has never had handles and that is white people land.
74
@67: Please don't do it. The commentary at Slog is already bad enough. Facebook is an entirely new level of stupid.
76
The Safeway at 75th and Roosevelt gives out handle-less bags, and I once saw Steve Ballmer in there. Sorry to torpedo your race card/rich card spin, Charles.
77
I refuse to shop at the Safeway in the neighborhoods where I work and live because of the annoying, handle-less bags. Both neighborhoods are higher income and predominantly white.
78
The article states that an employee at the Rainier Safeway informed reporter Charles Mudede that the store will switch to the other style bag once their remaining stock of bags runs out. This is a good non-wasting policy. Maybe the Rainier store has a larger stock of the old style bag because people that shop at that location bring their own and buy less paper bags. Whatever the reason, the employee said they are going to switch to the new style when they reorder bags. What's the problem here?
79
This just seems like lazy investigative journalism. Shouldn't more than two stores be checked out before such a grand statement is made? It would make sense to check out Safeway stores in several different neighborhoods across the Seattle area and speak with employees at each location.

If this article leads the Rainier Safeway to throw away a large quantity of handless bags, then the wasting of a huge amount of paper is on the head of Charles Mudede.
80
I shop at the Rainier Safeway and am white. They offered me handleless bags. The article headline is as false as it is sensational.
81
@64: @60 does not change that @54.
82
But I'm amazed at the number of Slog-ers who don't religiously use reuseable bags and fall back on paper, which is more environmentally harmful than plastic.
83
You need to chill out, Charles. The Safeway on Roosevelt just switched to the bags with handles not that long ago. Obviously, the stores are working through their stashes of bags.
84
@48 all that's missing is a forced reference to Thomas Piketty and Marxist dialectics.
85
Come to White Center, we got plastic bags at safeway. #HatersGonnaHate
86
I've always hated that the Safeway on John didn't have handled shopping bags. I'm happy to know they have themknow.
87
Last time I was at the 15th ave one they didn't have handles. That wasn't that long ago. I have a hard time thinking that Safeway is conspiring against people like this. Come on now.
88
The Safeway on MLK and Othello also only has handle-less bags. I'm not sure about race but it's super annoying. I rather drive to the QFC by my office (Rainier at McClellan) which uses the handle-bags. But yes - still a #firstworldproblem.
89
But it is amazing: you don't bring your own bag?!

In the 1% neighborhoods, bring-your-own-bag is de rigueur, as we like to say in French.
90
@82,

What else do you propose we "fall back" on? I've been using reusable bags for 17 years, long before it became even somewhat standard. Sometimes I forget, but even still I used to get stuck with a dozen plastic bags per week before the plastic bag ban. Now, I'll wind up with a paper bag maybe every other week.

For one, paper bags hold more stuff and rarely need to be double bagged.

For two, doublebagging plastic bags at grocery stores was the norm pre-ban, because those things tear ridiculously easily.

For three, the standard at stores like Safeway pre-ban was to give each item its own little doublebagged plastic nest, because God forbid my shampoo and my dish detergent have to share the same bag.

For four, if I was distracted or held back by a slow-moving customer, frequently everything I purchased would get bagged in plastic before I had the chance to say anything, because pre-ban only hippie enclaves like PCC would even ask you if you brought your own.

I greatly appreciate ridding myself of the annoyance of disposing of a dozen plastic bags every week. And, unlike plastic bags, I actually have practical uses for the occasional paper bag I pay for.
91
90 comments. Wow.
92
Charles: Count your blessings. The paper handles are so flimsy they invariably tear off, leaving the contents to tumble out of the bag. You're left with a useless bag and damaged goods. The handle-less bags force you to cradle the bottom. Much more reliable.

93
The Safeway on Admiral way and the Safeway on 42nd both use non-handle paper bags and those are both incredibly white neighborhoods. I think by only looking at 2 stores you shot your own story in the foot.
94
@88 burns gas to exercise a preference in disposable bags. I think (s)he MUST be trolling the environmentalists. I feel trolled.
95
I'm imagining a massive grocery warehouse with triple decker racking 30 feet tall. Forklifts are whizzing up and down the aisles. In a non food supply area are racks filled with pallets of grocery bags. Being non perishable there is no necessity to rotate them. Pallets of new bags are placed on the old and are almost as quickly removed and shipped out to
stores. Or perhaps a discontinued design is stored separately and doled out periodically in quantities proportionate to stores sales volumes until they are depleted.
96
I'm not sure where I stand on this one, other than to mostly agree with fnarf in that those handled bags can carry their fair share of weight (and I've carried an embarrassing number of six packs and bottles of wine in them. I generally attempt to use caution when doing so, and have rarely experienced any problem.)

The other item I'll address is those saying that Charles cites only two data points in his post. Which is true, though another commenter, way, way back, and I'm far too lazy to seek out the specific comment, pointed out that minority communities are consistently and egregiously underserved by public and private sectors. I suspect this would be backed up by a humongonormous data set.
97
I got the same bag from the Safeway in Bellevue, so I guess I buy the "phasing out of old bags" line.
98
Does anyone really think that they discussed at a corporate Safeway meeting on the pros and cons using handle-less bags in stores located in disenfranchised and poor neighborhoods? Of course not. And Charles really doesn't either.
99
Blacks have the worst schools, given to them by the government. Highest unemployment, with government to blame, highest poverty thanks to government policies, highest incarceration rates thanks to the big governments war on drugs...but Safeway hands out the wrong bags, most likely by mistake, and that's news worthy. So let's bash Safeway, but let the white supremacist minded government off the hook.

All I have to say is: http://www.troll.me/images/mlk-flying-p/…
100
With all that's happening in Seattle, King County, Puget Sound, the state of Washington and the USA I think paper bags has to be up there with major concerns.
101
Of all the mind-boggling aspects of this thread, the bogglingest is that comments were actually pulled for Trolling.
102
Dammit Mudede, why do you have to be so crappy at your job?
103
Last time I was at Safeway in whity whitesville Queen Anne they only had the bags without handles. I think you might want to widen your sample sizes Charles.
104
@ 98, if it's discussed at all, it would most likely be at the regional level.
105
This is dumb. I'm on the eastside in whiteyville, and we've only JUST got the handle bags.
106
A 105 comments about paper bags? Really?

I got nothing.

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