Frustration and worry crossed the faces of customers coming Sunday to Immokalee’s only supermarket — Winn-Dixie — after they discovered it had closed on Saturday. For good.
Winn-Dixie’s parking lot was mostly leaves, dust and litter blowing in the windy weather the day after the store closed for business. A steady trickle of customers tried for much of the morning to make purchases, only to be turned away by employees or the locked front door.
The most activity was by those store employees bringing out boxes. None wanted to talk.
"We all got severance to be paid,” a store worker who declined to ID himself said. He then shook his head when asked if he wanted to comment about the closing.
A few moments earlier he had turned and snapped a last photo of the white Winn-Dixie logo against the red roof of the now-closed store as he walked away.
The store was part of a deal by Aldi completed in March of last year for the purchase of Winn-Dixie’s parent company Southeastern Grocers. The plan is to convert many of the stores into the Aldi format.
That’s good news for Aldi's devotees — those who are good with the German-based grocer's small foot-print because they appreciate the chain's affordable produce and ever-changing selection of knock-off household goods offered at a fraction of the price of higher-end retail shops.
"They never consulted us and asked us, what do you think should come in? What would be beneficial for the community? We were never asked, we were never consulted."Maria Salinas, Immokalee mother of four on Winn-Dixie closure
Commissioner Bill McDaniel said he’ll bring a plan before Collier Commissioners on Tuesday for a dedicated county bus route to help the residents of Immokalee. The new route would ferry residents from the old Winn Dixie to one or more of the Publix sites in Collier County.
"There'll be two runs a day to and from the Publix stores, one probably in the morning and one in the afternoon," McDaniel said.
The commissioner added that the county is prepared to offer the services for the next year. Just when Aldi opens remains to be seen.
No one representing Aldi responded to WGCU News queries.
One of the Immokalee store's managers, who could only be identified as Osvaldo, said he didn't have any information about the new store's operational timeline and couldn't speak with WGCU or allow the station inside the store.
In Immokalee, for now, the closure of their Winn-Dixie is a very real hardship.
Take Maria Salinas for example.
The Immokalee resident had lived here 40-plus years. She had a van full of her family — four kids and her husband — and drove up not knowing the store was shuttered Sunday.
"It's gonna be horrible. I mean, they're gonna have a bus here to take people to Publix and other places? How ideal is that to get on a CAT (Collier Area Transit) bus with ... kids to go get groceries for a week? You're gonna need a wagon. You're gonna need an army to go with you at that point to travel and then come back," she asked.
Salinas said the closure situation, even with a bus provided, is not a real solution.
"If you have, you know, milk or dairy or anything like that, it's just not conducive with large families," Salinas said.
She's reserves expectations that Aldi is an answer.
"I'm really hoping. I've never gone to one, but everything I've heard, it's like a supplemental to a big grocery store, like a Publix or Walmart, a Target or a Winn-Dixie. And we don't need supplemental. We need something to be the main staple for our town that is going to be able to, you know, sustain this," she said.
Salinas said she made a stop at the Winn-Dixie earlier in the week and found that they had no milk.
"My one child just drinks milk, and I came, they weren't stocking anymore, I went over to CVS. They didn't have any. So now everything else that usually carries milk is going to be sold out very quickly," she said.
Salinas said the transportation issue is huge for some people in Immokalee. "People don't know how far out they can travel, where they can go and get things. And I feel sad for the people that pay for people to taxi them around. How much are they going to be paying now," Salinas said.
As for the CAT bus plan, she said it's a great idea, but...
"I get what they were trying to do. It's appreciated, but that's good for a single person, not large families," she said. "Like I see it, it's a Band-Aid on a wound for this town that's bleeding out right now."
Salinas said the closure was a shock.
"They just renovated it, maybe two, three years ago, I can't remember, not too long ago, they renovated, and this is what we have, and now they're taking it. And it should have been something else. It should have been another option," she said.
She said she has heard a lot of angry talk — after the fact.
"There was never a before the fact. They never consulted us and asked us, what do you think should come in? What would be beneficial for the community? We were never asked, we were never consulted," she said. "And it's not a good idea, for us, because it was really useful for people going home, you stop by, going to work. They were open at seven in the morning and you could stop by. Now we have no options. "
James Goodnight is another Immokalee resident who drove up to Winn-Dixie Sunday only to find it closed.
He, too, wasn't sure how Immokalee is going to deal with the closure.
"I got transportation. I find it easy to go to the Publix the next county over in Labelle. But there's people with no transportation, there's a lot of people that ride bikes around here. I mean, this is a major grocery store. This is the only thing we have in Immokalee."
He said those smaller local stores likely won't be the answer.
"And like I said earlier, we do have these other stores in the area, but just. They're not going to fulfill," he said. "I could just imagine everybody going to these stores to get their necessities, you know, milk, eggs, bread. It's going to be packed. The only option they're going to have are the smaller mom and pop stores, and they're not very big. If you walk into them, they're not the size of Winn-Dixie, you know, or the size of Publix or something like that."
Goodnight said that without a major grocery store, it is going to be a big inconvenience for this town.
"I have the means to get around, but unfortunately, some of these people, you know, they don't, you know, they walk or bikes or they get rides, you know," he said.
Told about the bus plan, Goodnight wasn't sure about that working out.
"Yeah, but that's going to be tough for people to hold kids," he said. "Kids and it not only that, the working people, you know, they're going to get off at five, six, seven o'clock, and they got to go get something. You know, you think they're going to jump back on the bus to head over to Ave Maria or somewhere else?"
For those in Immokalee looking for a full-service grocery store now, that will a small Publix Supermarket at Ave Maria, which is eight miles away. The closest regular-size grocery store -- another Publix — is 30 miles away. Each way.
More activity at the old Winn-Dixie will come Monday. The old store's check-out counters, shelves and baking and roasting equipment -- it appears just about everything -- go up for auction then.
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