Publisher’s Note: Selfish Parking at the QFC

Precious real estate: The parking lot of the North End QFC.

Publisher’s Notes are the personal opinions of The Distorter’s Publisher-in-Chief and do not necessarily represent the official editorial position of The Distorter.

As anybody who lives on the island knows, ever since Albertsons closed its doors last summer, the North End QFC has been bursting at the seams. And the worst part is the parking lot: I have to drive around the lot, sometimes for several minutes, waiting for a spot to become available. This is simply unacceptable. I’m sure that some of this is caused by walk-off parking for other businesses, though I’m not holding my breath waiting for our impotent city council to solve that problem. But today something happened that made me literally blow my top.

I was driving my Lexus SUV around the QFC lot looking for a parking spot and saw a large truck taking up at least four spots. When I finally parked and got out of my spot, I walked over and saw the logo for Food Lifeline on the side of the truck. I waited by the truck until the driver came back, and you can be sure I gave him a piece of my mind. The nerve of that man!

Then I went inside the QFC to say something to the store manager. I wanted to suggest that the QFC should be scheduling its food deliveries at off-peak shopping times. And do you know what the manager told me? The Food Lifeline truck isn’t delivering food to the QFC. It’s a service that takes food out of the QFC and gives it to food banks.

So let me get this straight: I have to take extra time to get my shopping done so that other people — who probably don’t even live on Mercer Island — can get food delivered to them. Whose brilliant idea is that?

If QFC management somehow thinks this is a worthwhile endeavor, I hope they can figure out a way to do this without inconveniencing its loyal (for now) customers. Maybe they can send that truck to the QFC in Factoria.

Letitia Snugbottom
Publisher-in-Chief
The Mercer Island Distorter