Safeway closing underperforming Vons on Nellis

Vons customers near Nellis Boulevard and Sahara Avenue will need to drive farther or find another grocery chain to shop.

A spokesman for the Vons parent company, Safeway, says the outlet at 2224 S. Nellis Blvd. will close at the end of the year.

The approximately 40 employees will be moved to other stores and customers in the area who want to stick with the company will need to head to the next-closest location at 1131 E. Tropicana Ave., nearly eight miles away.

Safeway spokesman Daymond Rice said the Nellis store wasn't keeping pace with company expectations.

"We open and close stores all the time," Rice said. "This is one that simply did not live up to its performance standards."

It is one of three Vons stores in Las Vegas to close this year; the other two closed after Thanksgiving, Rice said. The closings were offset in part by the opening of a new Vons in Henderson last year and plans for another store in the Las Vegas area next year.

Safeway will operate 304 Vons stores, including 22 in Southern Nevada, after the end of the year.

All three of the local Vons stores to shut down this year predate the "lifestyle format" the company started applying in 2004, Rice said.

The new format features decorating touches such as hardwood floors and a greater emphasis on deli meals and other prepared foods.

The style is similar to those of new chains to Las Vegas, such as Trader Joe's and, more recently, Fresh & Easy. Although Vons stores still hew to the larger layout of a traditional supermarket, Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy favor smaller stores with less selection.

Rice said Vons is at an added disadvantage compared with the newer chains because of union contracts. Vons is among the valley supermarket chains that employ union labor, while upstarts such as Fresh & Easy do not. There are about 7,000 United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 711 in Las Vegas with contracts at Vons, Albertsons and Smith's stores.

"You see an influx of nonunion competitors that have come into the industry," Rice said.

Michael Gittings, secretary treasurer of the local, said union workers and stores benefit from the contracts, but he wouldn't elaborate what incentives either side gets by participating in collective bargaining.

Neither would Gittings talk about whether he believed union contracts put stores at a competitive disadvantage compared to nonunion markets.

"I just said I wasn't going to comment on it," Gittings said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or (702) 477-3861.