PORT ANGELES — Haggen Northwest Fresh grocery employees must wait to see if the store where they work at 114 E. Lauridsen Blvd. will be auctioned off by the bankrupt supermarket chain.
Although the Bellingham-based company said Monday it “does not anticipate any changes in continuing operations,” the company scheduled a court hearing in Delaware for Dec. 4 to discuss selling the 32 “core stores” it had promised Sept. 25 to keep open.
The core stores include the Port Angeles store — the only Haggen store on the North Olympic Peninsula — where on Wednesday, Haggen-Port Angeles Manager Darrel Chard said he’d heard nothing from Haggen headquarters.
“Basically what I know is what’s on the news,” he said.
“They haven’t told us any more than that.”
Haggen had filed for bankruptcy Sept. 11 after buying 146 Safeway and Albertsons stores early this year.
It had asked to sell about 100 stores in auctions that started Monday, according to The Bellingham Herald.
Haggen’s boom and bust began in January when the Federal Trade Commission ordered Albertsons and Safeway to sell 168 supermarkets the agency said could be anti-competitive in 130 local markets from Washington to Texas.
Haggen bought 146 of them. The remaining 22 Safeways and Albertsons stores were bought by the Supervalu, Associated Wholesale Grocers and Associated Food Stores grocery chains, supermarket industry publications said.
When the then-Albertsons employees in Port Angeles got the news they would be working for Haggen, previously a Whatcom County-headquartered chain of 18 groceries and 16 pharmacies, they were pleased.
At that time, Albertsons workers were “pretty excited” about the change, according to Assistant Manager Scott Metzler.
“Everyone is still happy to still be on board and looking forward to some changes happening,” he said.
The Haggen banner went up on the former Albertsons on Feb. 16.
On Wednesday, Chard said he knew of no plans to close the store.
That was in line with the company’s announcement that it had scheduled the hearing because “as part of the restructuring process, Haggen was required to explore potential outside opportunities for all of its operations, including the core stores which are performing well,” the company said in a statement emailed Wednesday.
“The bid procedures filed [Monday] comply with those terms. Despite the filing, Haggen does not anticipate any changes to continuing operations at the core stores including regular payments to suppliers and partners,” the company said.
Haggen spokeswoman Deborah Pieva did not elaborate on the statement.
Besides Port Angeles, 24 of those core stores are located in King, Island, Pierce, Skagit, Snohomish, Thurston, Walla Walla, Wenatchee and Whatcom counties in Washington, plus seven stores in Oregon.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
