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Costco in Harlem-- Politicians call for acceptance of food stamps

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admin | May 5 2009 - 9:26am
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I had an interesting conversation with someone about this the other day. They say that we can't force a company, who is trying to make money, to accept food stamps for produce. I thought it would be nice and perhaps responsible to give people the option to use food stamps especially with all the news in recent years that Harlem does not have good access to healthy food. BUT there is also the issue that in order to shop at Costco you have to pay for membership...

 According to the Daily News article (link below), other similar companies like BJ's and Sams Club do accept food stamps, yet Costco says: "stores wouldn't accept food stamps because they lacked the "technology" for the program". 

Read the article here:

http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/05/03/2009-05-03_politicians_urge_costco_to_accept_food_stamps_for_its_produce.html

 

What do you think? Yes to acceptance of food stamps? But what about the fact that you have to pay membership fee? No because it is not in Costco's best interests??

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4 Comments

cesar May 5, 2009 - 10:40am

Also read the East Harlem Preservation editorial about the issue: http://eastharlem.ning.com/profiles/blogs/costco-and-food-stamps-a-good?xgs=1

cesar June 1, 2009 - 12:25pm

UPDATE: So Costco is going to test out the food stamps in Harlem! http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090529/FREE/905299983 MORE articles on East Harlem Preservation site: http://www.eastharlempreservation.org/docs/East_River_Plaza.htm

mikese June 24, 2009 - 3:47am

I'm not familiar with how the stamps work but why not give a pre loaded debit card that can be used at grocery shops? It's not like they are going to staples and buying a computer

Riverside June 24, 2009 - 1:49pm

Mikese, Food stamps *are* actually in the form of a pre-loaded debit card that these days. They are called EBT (Electric Benefit Transfer) cards and look just like a debit card and work with a pin number at places who accept them. It's a pretty cool concept, it just depends on stores accepting the food stamps. I'm not sure of the "technological" implications, because it seems to me that if you accept debit cards, EBT cards should work under the same system, but it seems like Costco is implying otherwise... geez!
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