Editorials

Over the weekend, talk at parties was how the project now known as Trader Joe’s got the green light from Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board to set up shop on University Avenue, accompanied by several stories of market-rate condos-in-waiting and a big parking garage. One Berkeley-reared guest at Saturday night’s event thought Trader Joe’s was a nice addition to Berkeley because it’s owned by a southern California family, and expands by bootstrapping, one store at a time. Well, no, we said. Since 1979 it’s been part of a German billion-dollar conglomerate, though the whole empire is indeed owned by two German brothers in a family trust. She seemed shocked, almost disbelieving, so cleverly has TJ’s (as it’s called by its devotees) marketed its downhome image. Founder Joe is long gone. But it treats its employees very well, she said. Well, yes, as long as they don’t try to organize a union, we said. That also seemed to surprise her. 

The store assiduously cultivates what Deutsche-Welle called its “Bourgeois Bohemian” image for “the socially conscious, well-educated middle class with income to spare.” Those are what used to be called “Upper Bohemians” in the ’50s — today’s Berkeley in a nut-shell, or more precisely, Upper Berkeley, those citizens who are protected by their R-1 zoning and elevated home sites from unpleasant incursions like the monster apartment complex the city plans to drop on the hapless Berkeley Way residents who will live next to the truck entrance to the TJ Building. The distribution of votes in favor of Measure J, the preservation initiative, was telling: it did much better in the flats than in the hills, where residents don’t need its protection. 

Upper Berkeleyans like TJ’s pseudo-ethnic specialties and cheap wine, and don’t like having to drive all the way to Emeryville or El Cerrito to get them. But you can be pretty sure that most of them won’t be walking down to University Avenue either. That’s why the big garage is needed, though some neighbors fear it’s still too small.  

Trader Joe’s PC aura, whether deserved or not, has made it easy for pro-growthers to recruit a claque to make speeches at commission meetings, and when the beleagured neighbors make their final appeal to City Council after the first of the year the pro-Joes will probably turn out again in force. But an El Cerrito citizen who doesn’t shop at the existing TJ’s, even though she lives not far away, buttonholed me at another holiday party to complain that the store might not be as politically pure as its public relations department would like us to believe. 

The evidence? A Trader Joe’s paper shopping bag brought by another guest. In honor of the season, the management saw fit to print a “Holiday Story,” a pretty bad piece of doggerel loosely patterned after “The Night Before Christmas,” on it. The punch line was that “Holidays are always so hectic and crazy. Trader Joe’s is nearby. Go ahead. Be lazy!” Her objection, however, wasn’t to the quality of the verse (though it should have been) but to one of the purchase suggestions: “…even some wrapped gifts for that sullen old biddy.” 

The outraged complainer, an Englishwoman of a certain age, sees that line as gratuitously nasty misogyny and age bias. She’s sensitive to traditional depictions of older women as evil hags, and thinks that even Trader Joe’s wouldn’t use similar deprecatory language about racial groups, for example. The online Urban Dictionary of usage says of “biddy”: “In the UK usually preceded by the word old to denote a generally annoying old woman getting in the way or ruining your fun.” That seems to be TJ’s European management’s intended meaning. I’ve also heard “biddy” used as an ethnic slur, taken from the Irish name Bridget and parallel to the similar use of “Paddy” (from Patrick) for men. As a sometimes sullen woman of a certain age myself, with an Irish name to boot, I do find the line offensive. But then I find the whole premise of the store offensive, with cutesy-poo ethnic names (Trader Giotto’s spaghetti sauce, Trader Ming’s won-tons) used to cover up what are basically generic house brands of no particular distinction. 

However such annoyances should be neither here nor there when the Berkeley City Council takes up the neighbors’ inevitable appeal. If Berkeley wants Trader Joe’s, there are other downtown sites where it would be welcome, as letter writers have suggested.  

In a case like this, councilmembers are not supposed to think about whether the groundfloor tenant is PC or consumer-friendly, but about whether the developer’s plans comply with all applicable laws. One possibility for grounds for an appeal is the California Environmental Quality Act. The city is trying to sidestep doing an environmental impact report, which is a dubious decision in view of the massive size of the project. Whether or not the ZAB decision complies with the requirements of the city’s iniative-passed Neighborhood Commercial Preservation Act is another potential appeal question. It will be interesting to see what happens after the first of the year, when the holidays are over.