Grocery

The housing market's continuing struggles have upset the retirement plans of millions of Americans, keeping more of them in their current homes, waiting for diminished equity to reappear. Others plan to move, but they appear to be demanding something much different from what they wanted before the real estate boom turned to bust: smaller, less expensive retirement houses they can afford with their reduced means. At the start of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, economists weren't anticipating that the long-term trend toward retirement living would be derailed.

Hunger isn't confined to a single zip code. But there are few places where its impact is more evident than within this city's First Congressional District, rated the second-hungriest in America. Inquirer reporter Alfred Lubrano recently detailed how that hunger, rooted in poverty, can paradoxically lead to obesity. Many among the poor are overweight not from eating too much, but because they eat the wrong foods. Poor inner-city families eating a cheap but unhealthy diet of fattening, processed foods larded with high-fructose corn syrup, fats, and salt are bound to pack on the pounds.

Wiretaps on a North Philadelphia grocer's phone led yesterday to the convictions of two brothers from New York on heroin-trafficking charges. Following an eight-day trial and about four hours of deliberations, a federal jury in Philadelphia convicted Antonio Collado, 34, of Queens, and his brother, Policai Collado, 30, of Brooklyn, of conspiracy and other related charges. Three other defendants were found guilty of all charges. Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank R. Costello Jr., the case prosecutor, said evidence from the wiretaps showed that two defendants, Miriam Sanchez, 26, of 2nd Street near Cumberland, Philadelphia, and Victoria Frias, 27, of the Bronx, worked as couriers for the heroin ring, carrying money to New York and heroin back to Philadelphia.

The mother of a grocer was shot and critically wounded yesterday, apparently by a man who had purchased a hoagie a few minutes earlier at the store in the Parkside section. The woman, whom Camden police identified as Kunson Silverstein, 62, of Browns Mills, was shot once in the chest with a handgun. She was listed in critical condition last night in the intensive care unit at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Investigators said David Silverstein, who operates the Corner Store, a small grocery in the 1500 block of Kenwood Avenue, had left his mother to tend the store briefly while he went to the post office.

Joann Sheets was in the deli, halfway into her cheesesteak sandwich, when the bell on the door of the adjacent grocery store jingled, indicating that a customer had entered. She noticed the manager was absent and the grocery store cashier was busy serving customers in the deli. Sheets, a regular, put down her cheesesteak, headed up the two steps connecting the deli to the grocery, positioned herself behind the cash register, rang up the customer's items, bade her farewell and returned to finish her sandwich.

Returning to rob the same small grocery store he robbed a month earlier might not have been a smart thing to do. But that didn't stop Matthew E. Rosiana, according to Sgt. Brian Prior of Delanco police. Police said that Rosiana, 20, of the 300 block of Middleton Street in Riverside, and Steven A. Skillings, 20, of the 200 block of Whittaker Street in Riverside, threatened two cashiers in the Liberty Mart, at 700 Burlington Avenue at about 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday. Skillings pulled out a knife when the cashiers did not cooperate, and a struggle ensued, Prior said.

He certainly wasn't rude. In fact, he was downright pleasant, even if he did have a gun. "How are you doing?" the man in the black silk jacket asked the customer at the Pathmark courtesy counter in Bensalem last Thursday afternoon. What the customer didn't realize was that the man was in the process of robbing the clerk behind the counter. "The witness standing next to him didn't know what was going on (until) she saw him take the money and run," said Township Police Capt.

For Marlynn Rutenberg of the Far Northeast, grocery shopping is usually a solo chore, a pleasant excursion that takes her away from the daily routine of picking up after a family of seven. So why was Rutenberg, along with baby sitter Jeanne Jagodzinski, toting four children - ages 2 through 8 - to the Carrefour hypermarket complex on Tuesday? The answer is Olympiad '88, a series of sports exhibitions featuring everything from area youth displaying their double-dutch jump-rope skills to the dazzling performances of professional high divers, hot-dog skiers, acrobats and gymnasts, all brought together in the parking lot of Carrefour at Knights and Woodhaven Roads.

Township police have found no evidence of food tampering in the Shop 'N' Bag in the Dutton Mill Shopping Center on Pennell Road. About 9:45 p.m. Saturday, police said, they received a call from the grocery reporting that several leaflets were found on the shelves. The leaflets said food had been tampered with by "angry animal rights activists," who wished to close the Aston Pet Center, also in the shopping center. The Aston Pet Center has been the target of protests since last December, resulting from allegations that the store kept animals in unfit conditions.

You're in the grocery store doing your shopping. Because the store doesn't put prices on the items, you feel like you're shopping blind. To find out how much something costs, you have to search for the shelf tag. If you can't find it or it didn't have one, there's no way to know how much it will cost - or to compare it to other items to see which is the best buy. All you can do is guess and hope it won't cost too much. Later you start to worry whether you have enough money.

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation Wednesday to adopt a ban on plastic bags at supermarket checkout lines, handing a major victory to clean-water advocates who sought to reduce the amount of trash clogging landfills, the region's waterways, and the ocean. Egged on by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and an array of environmental groups, the Los Angeles City Council voted, 13-1, to phase out plastic bags over the next year at an estimated 7,500 stores. Councilman Bernard Parks cast the lone no vote.

Terrance is a sociable 17-year-old who enjoys doing puzzles, bowling, swimming, and using the computer. He is willing to try new activities and taking part in group games, patiently waiting his turn. Diagnosed with autism, Terrance is involved in a prevocational school program that develops clerical, janitorial, and grocery shopping skills. He has learned to use the copy machine and puts together pamphlets to distribute to his school community. In the grocery program he shops and puts groceries away.

Elkins Park's tiny downtown has not been the same since Ashbourne Market closed in 2002. Tucked into a commercial strip just a few blocks long, the market was more than a grocery with a big kosher section. For four decades, it was the convivial hub of the community, where neighbors gathered over bagels and lox on Sunday mornings. Having lost their anchor, however, nearby stores began to falter. Others moved in - including a tasty shawarma joint - only to fail, too. The strip was so barren, said Max Minkoff, that "you couldn't buy an apple" there.

Order groceries while waiting for a train? That's the focus of a new advertising campaign at 15 SEPTA rail stations. Peapod - the grocery delivery service owned by Ahold USA, parent of Giant Food Stores - last month put up ad posters that resemble grocery shelves stocked with about four dozen popular products, such as diapers, milk, and laundry detergent. Commuters with smartphones can download Peapod's free app on the spot and scan the bar codes. Orders are delivered the next day, in most cases.

A Philadelphia judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation Wednesday for one of the two men charged in last year's triple killing at a West Philadelphia grocery after a defense attorney said his client has a long history of involuntary commitments for treatment of schizophrenia. Defense attorney Lawrence S. Krasner made the comments about Ibrahim Muhammed in requesting a delay in the preliminary hearing for Muhammed and codefendant Nalik Shariff Scott while Muhammed undergoes a psychiatric evaluation to see whether he is mentally competent.

Bottom Dollar Food, the grocery chain that moved into the Philadelphia region 18 months ago with a deep-discount format and new stores across Southeastern Pennsylvania, announced Tuesday it would open four more stores in South Jersey. A store on Route 130 North in Cinnaminson was set to open Friday, and additional openings were planned through next year on West Browning Road in Bellmawr, Broad Street in Woodbury, and Route 38 in Mount Holly, the North Carolina-based company said.

For more than a decade, Chester City has been without a supermarket, leading to its designation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a "food desert. " That will soon change, and with a unique nonprofit twist. Friday afternoon, Philabundance, best known for collecting and distributing emergency food aid throughout the Philadelphia area, announced that it had purchased a mostly vacant building on Ninth Street in Chester's West End. That building housed the last supermarket in the city to close, in 2001.

Police arrested the alleged gunman Friday in a triple slaying at a West Philadelphia grocery store and issued a murder warrant for a second man wanted in the September killings. Ibrahim Muhammed, described as a 31-year-old career criminal, allegedly shot the owner of Lorena's Grocery, his wife, and her sister during a robbery Sept. 6, police said Friday. Muhammed, of Southwest Philadelphia, who had 18 previous arrests, had been taken into custody Thursday on an unrelated drug charge.