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Shop local… if you can

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Sonoma Valley Sun

(Reader opinion by Fred Allebach) I’d love to buy local, but ordinary staples of life are simply not sold in Sonoma at prices that are affordable to the middle and working classes. For me and every skilled/ unskilled service worker I’ve ever asked — dental hygienist, carpenter, retail employee, etc. — we all have to go to the 101 corridor, Napa, the I-80 corridor or American Canyon to shop. This is for Costco, Wal-Mart, Winco, Trader Joes, Grocery Outlet, Target, K-Mart, for things like gasoline, household items, food etc.

The fact is, in Sonoma prices are inflated all the way around, reflecting trends in gentrification and high-end tourism.

I shop local with Readers Books, Sonoma Music, Eraldi’s, Sebastiani Theater, Amy’s Restaurant, Papa Murphy’s, Friedman’s, Parson’s, thrift stores, plus occasional purchases of gifts. Eating and drinking out is fun but an expensive habit to be avoided, done only when friends and relatives visit.

People of my economic station in life readily commiserate about high costs. It simply does not pencil out to shop locally here. It takes too high a percentage of my income to make it anything more than a rare treat. Local food is a great idea but unfortunately the whole endeavor is caught up in the same type of exclusive wine country price inflation. Local food might be available from Catholic Charities or FISH should someone really need it and find a way to go get it on the back end of the delivery system.

Now, there are only five Mediterranean climates in the world that can produce world-class wine grapes. Sonoma Valley happens to be smack dab in the middle of one, right at a time when a gentrification/ tourist bubble is growing. This is a geographic, economic reality. To have sour grapes over top value grapes, is, well, like putting your finger in the dike. There is an economic system in place and this is how things work in our unplanned economy; you get while the getting is good. When enough consumers can pay more for high-end items, it pays for people to figure out how to produce and sell them.

And, in many respects tourism is a good industry — not much smokestack industrial production, and the disposable income drives right in. People come to absorb the quaint atmosphere, history, to taste the local character and agriculture. Tourism works when there is a synergy of environment, ambient medium, inherent attraction and hospitality. Wealth theoretically trickles down and is redistributed to the locals and the rising tide lifts all boasts.

Yet somehow shopping locally is mostly not possible for those people who serve the tourist combine. Something wrong with this picture? Yes there is. Multiple factors combine to make shopping locally a delight on one hand, on the other unaffordable. If having the local populace able to shop locally is a goal, the above factors need to be arranged differently so as to bring the whole endeavor into a sustainable, affordable window, to at least give the servants a seat at the table.

It’s not surprising given the climate, the wine, the tourism, that a runaway price inflation has taken hold, and goods, services, rents etc. are all pushed up to levels of what ‘the market’ can bear. But who is this market that can bear such high prices compared to other regional cities and locales? The wealth of tourists, second homeowners and gentrifying residents all combines to provide the high ceiling of our local consumer market. The ability of these above people to pay more drives up costs everywhere.

It is delightful to see all the storefronts and decorations. I love to stroll the Plaza and take it all in. The atmosphere is special, the bistros and shops with cheese and music, the art,, the crafts all very nice,.What an eat-drink-and-be-merry life it would be to partake.

Tourism and gentrification, then, are double-edged swords. Local is the mantra, yet there are two locals: one that can participate, and the other that serves and can’t. It’s Christmas Story all over again. That old hourglass economy seems to be a property of our flavor of economy. What we have, still, is an economic system that needs tweaking.

It is great for some merchants that they can have a tourist-based business, great for the city and county to get all the taxes and funding streams. It all seems to work except for that shopping ‘local’ is at once a boon and a burden.

Fred Allebach
Sonoma




Sonoma Sun | Sonoma, CA