LAWSON’S PHARMACY A look at the last independent drugstore in town. PAGE 9
Hyattsville considers a staff shakeup by Paula Minaert
The city council discussed a plan at its January 3 meeting to reorganize the way the city staff operates. Presented by Communications Manager Abby Sandel, the plan suggested creating a new Department of Community Services. It would include various departments and functions that are currently separate, such as volunteer services, parks and recreation, events coordination, and telecommunications work. Sandel has also been acting director of parks and recreation since the position became vacant last summer. She told the council that after “six months of wearing two hats,” she found “a high degree of overlap between those roles.” In the nearly three years she’s been here, she added, she’s observed “a number of small functions that work very closely together but that don’t have a formal working relationship. We’ve all been independently directly reporting to the city administrator.” She said the current staff vacancies create “a good opportunity to look at the structure of the organization and see if there is a
COUNTY CUTS
Blues-playing barber Archie Edwards may be gone, but his music lives on. PAGE 4
Some trees removed from West Hyattsville belonged to the city. PAGE 7
Hyattsville Life&Times
Vol. 9 No. 1
Hyattsville’s Community Newspaper
Hyattsville Life & Times PO Box 132 Hyattsville, MD 20781
January 2012
Safeway to close February 4 by Susie Currie
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STAFFING continued on page 11
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
SUSIE CURRIE Hyattsvilleʼs Hamilton Street Safeway is to become the next to be replaced by Bestway, following the chainʼs former Riggs Road store (bottom photo).
Ending months of speculation, Safeway executives have confirmed that the Hyattsville store will close on February 4. The building has been sold to Bestway, described on its website as “one of the largest independent Hispanic food retailers on the East Coast.” Previously, Bestway replaced the Safeway at Adelphi and Riggs roads. The Hyattsville store will be the seventh in the region and the third in Maryland. The move comes nearly 30 years to the day after Safeway opened in that location. It ends more than a century’s presence in Hyattsville, dating back to at least 1909, when the Sanitary Grocery Co. occupied the corner of Gallatin Street and 42nd Place. In 1928, Safeway bought that store (now the home of Yoga Space) as well as the rest of the chain. From that location the market would move twice more, first to Route 1 and then to the corner of Hamilton Street and Queens Chapel Road, before opening at 3511 Hamilton Street on February 3, 1982. Employees, who will be offered jobs at other locations, were given the news on January 5. But store manager Nikki Nell said she had been fielding their questions since at least Thanksgiving. “Every day, when I come in, I don’t even get a ‘Hi,’ ” she said. “It’s just ‘Do you have a [closing] date yet?’ ” Questions intensified last month when a sign on the Safeway pharmacy window informed customers that it would close SAFEWAY continued on page 9
Included: The January 11, 2012 Issue of The Hyattsville Reporter — See Center Section