Grocery

Acme supermarkets in Morrisville, Sharon Hill, and Glassboro, N.J., are to be shut down by December as part of a broader cost-cutting move in which corporate parent Supervalu Inc. will close 60 stores across the nation, the Minnesota-based company said Wednesday. A fourth Acme in Stevensville, Md., is also among those being shuttered as an "underperforming or nonstrategic" store, as are 22 Save-A-Lot locations. The announcement comes as Supervalu tests the market for potential buyers of some or all of the retail- and wholesale-grocery corporation, which consists of Malvern-based Acme Markets, Chicago's Jewel-Osco supermarket chain, a food distribution segment, and other retail grocery chains.

Helping others during the holidays is Joe Hoelscher, who loads grocery bags containing food baskets as part of Gloria Dei Church's Operation Shining Star. The Huntingdon Valley church prepared 600 food baskets for distribution Saturday to families in need in Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia Counties.

Illegal alcoholic beverages that may contain opium as well as "snakes, lizards or turtles" were seized yesterday during raids on four Chinatown grocery stores, state police officials said. Federal and state authorities conducted the raids and seized about 1,500 bottles of the black-market booze valued at $50,000. Officials said the groceries had no liquor licenses. State Police Sgt. John McGeehan said no one was arrested during the raids by officers from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the state police Bureau of Liquor Control and Enforcement.

Virginia Baynard goes to the grocery store only once a month, riding a bus there with her two daughters, ages 13 and 6. Then they catch a cab back home. "I usually get seven bags of stuff to make sure I get everything I need," the 36-year-old Coatesville woman said. Going more often would be too much trouble. "I don't think we should have to come way out here," she said about the trips to neighboring Thorndale Township for groceries. It wasn't always like that. A couple of years ago, she could have gone to Shop Fresh, an 11,500-square-foot supermarket at 300 E. Lincoln Highway in Coatesville.

The parent company of Acme Markets, the region's largest grocery chain, yesterday named Dan Sanders Acme's new president. Sanders, the former chief executive officer of Texas-based United Supermarkets, will join Acme immediately and replaces Judith Spires, who resigned earlier this month. Supervalu Inc., the Minnesota company that owns Acme, appointed Sanders less than three weeks after Spires announced her resignation effective March 13. Acme operates 124 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, and it has more than 16,000 employees.

Philadelphia police issued an arrest warrant yesterday for a man they believe shot and killed another man after the pair began arguing in a South Philadelphia grocery. Jamal Richardson, 18, of the 1800 block of South 30th Street, died at 5:21 p.m. Thursday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, about 30 minutes after he was shot in the chest in the Rodriguez grocery store in the 2600 block of Dickinson Street. According to Homicide Sgt. Ron McClane, Richardson and another man entered the grocery at the same time.

Police are looking for a man who robbed a Mellon PSFS bank branch in the Acme grocery store at the Village Mall on Blair Mill Road yesterday morning, Horsham police said. It was the second holdup of a grocery-store branch in the area in less than a week. Shoppers who witnessed the holdup told police they thought the robber was armed, but they were not sure, Detective Dave Bassenger said. "He left on foot and was last seen heading toward Moreland Avenue," Bassenger said. The robber was described as a black male about 5 feet 8 and 140 pounds and wearing a knit hat, police said.

The demise of Priceline.com's name-your-own-price grocery business will have minimal, if any, impact on local grocers, the stores said yesterday. Priceline WebHouse Club, Priceline.com's licensee for name-your-own-price gasoline and groceries, announced Thursday that it would close. "We don't believe there will be a dramatic impact whatsoever on Pathmark," said Pathmark spokesman Rich Savner. Pathmark was one of the stores where Priceline grocery customers could pick up what they selected online; so were Acme and Genuardi's, among others.