Grocery Store

Unlike most other states, Maryland shoppers have to make one extra stop for a cabernet to go with that steak they bought on sale at the supermarket —grocery stores in the state generally are banned from selling alcohol. Increasingly, though, grocery chains like Wegmans and Harris Teeter are trying to find ways around the prohibition, drawing pushback from Maryland's powerful liquor lobby and package goods stores but support from consumers hoping for easier food-and-wine pairings.

James F. Bray, a retired grocery store manager, died Tuesday of an aneurysm at his Jessup home. He was 76. Mr. Bray was born in Virginia and raised in North Carolina and Baltimore, where he graduated from city public schools. He served in the Army for three months and was honorably discharged in 1958. Mr. Bray worked for Food Fair and later as an evening grocery manager at Pantry Pride from 1952 to 1981, when he retired. During the 1980s, he worked for several years for Valu Food as a manager.

Contract negotiations between management and the union representing workers at Giant Food and Safeway are expected to continue Tuesday, said a union spokeswoman, who added that no progress had been reported so far. The contract between the grocery chains and the union, which represents 23,000 employees in the Baltimore-Washington region, expires March 31. On Monday, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 400 in Landover said five...

If local pharmacists could write the regulations, Marylanders probably wouldn't ever have been allowed to get their prescriptions filled at chain stores like Walgreens and Rite-Aid. Independent video stores probably would have liked to outlaw Blockbuster, just as small bookstore owners probably would have been just as happy if the state had a ban on Barnes & Noble. (For that matter, Blockbuster might like an injunction against Netflix and Barnes & Noble on Amazon.com.) And most of all, Main Street merchants everywhere would probably love a world where Walmart was illegal.

I read with interest and amazement the article on children nagging their parents for junk food in the supermarket ("Combating the 'nag factor,' Sept. 8). The entire situation is a foreign concept to me. Professor Dina Borzekowski observed that "every mom has a story about the tantrum in the cereal aisle. " I don't, and I certainly don't have children who are overly angelic. Far from it. I have a 3-year-old and 6-year-old who are pretty typical kids with the exception of one thing - they watch very little TV. Maybe one hour a week, sometimes less.

Services for Benjamin Gumnit, who operated a grocery store in East Baltimore for 35 years, will be held at noon today at Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral home, 6010 Reisterstown Road.Mr. Gumnit, 85, died Friday at Baltimore County General Hospital.He had Alzheimer's disease and had lived for the past 1 1/2 years at the Milford Manor Nursing Home.Born in eastern Europe near the border of Russia and Poland, Mr. Gumnit was 5 years old when he came to the United States with his mother and four sisters.

Anne A. Rabinowitz, longtime owner of a Northwest Baltimore grocery store who later sold women's apparel, died of heart failure Sunday at a Cleveland hospice. The former Pikesville resident was 88. She was born Anne Attman in Russia, the youngest of 10 children. She immigrated to Baltimore in 1921 after being sponsored by brother Harry Attman, founder of the well-known East Lombard Street delicatessen. Raised on East Lombard Street, Mrs. Rabinowitz was a 1934 graduate of Eastern High School.

A 55,000-square-foot Safeway opens today in the newly renovated Harper's Choice Village Center, which has gone more than two years without a grocery store.The store, which is the company's largest in Howard County, includes a pharmacy, full-service deli, bakery, seafood counter and flower shop.It opens amid concerns among merchants and others for safety at the center after a weekend incident in which two Safeway employees were robbed at gunpoint outside the store.About 11: 30 p.m. Saturday, Howard County police said, the workers were walking toward the store on Harper's Farm Road when they were accosted and robbed of their cash, police said.

Anthony Robinson, a West Baltimore deli and grocery store owner whose business survived the riots of 1968 and several arsons, died Tuesday of heart failure while living with friends in Havre de Grace. He was 76.From the mid-1950s until the late 1970s, Mr. Robinson operated the A.O.K. Grocery Store on Bentalou Street.The store was small and could accommodate only about five people at a time, but was known for thick sandwiches, all varieties of sodas, scores of faithful customers and a bench outside where people gathered until well into the evening.

James F. Bray, a retired grocery store manager, died Tuesday of an aneurysm at his Jessup home. He was 76. Mr. Bray was born in Virginia and raised in North Carolina and Baltimore, where he graduated from city public schools. He served in the Army for three months and was honorably discharged in 1958. Mr. Bray worked for Food Fair and later as an evening grocery manager at Pantry Pride from 1952 to 1981, when he retired. During the 1980s, he worked for several years for Valu Food as a manager.

Unlike most other states, Maryland shoppers have to make one extra stop for a cabernet to go with that steak they bought on sale at the supermarket —grocery stores in the state are generally banned from selling alcohol. Increasingly, though, grocery chains like Wegmans and Harris Teeter are trying to find ways around the prohibition, drawing pushback from Maryland's powerful liquor lobby and package goods stores but support from consumers hoping for easier food-and-wine pairings.

Now I really feel old. A friend of mine used to call the grocery store at the Rotunda the "Flirt Giant. " And it was true, back when I moved here about 25 years ago: You got the sense people were trolling the aisles there for more than Lean Cuisines. It was bad enough that over the years the Flirt Giant aged out — if there were still shoppers on the prowl there, they also were probably on walkers. The Rotunda itself was sagging a bit, slowly some of its smaller shops, but as long as the Giant anchored one end and the movie theater the other, the mall seemed to still have a heartbeat.

Contract negotiations between management and the union representing workers at Giant Food and Safeway are expected to continue Tuesday, said a union spokeswoman, who added that no progress had been reported so far. The contract between the grocery chains and the union, which represents 23,000 employees in the Baltimore-Washington region, expires March 31. On Monday, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 400 in Landover said five...

Your gushing about the arrival of Wegmans ("Counting down the days until Wegmania finally hits Howard County," Feb. 9) left off another important fact: the insane traffic congestion on Snowden River Parkway that the opening of Wegmans will cause. Don't get me wrong. I like Wegmans, too, as a grocery store and I have been known to drive to Hunt Valley to go to Wegmans. But that's just the point. As you mentioned in your article, people will come from great distances to go to the store, i.e. like the 1,500 shoppers you mentioned for opening day in Landover.

Morris Martick, the colorful restaurateur who ran a Baltimore landmark for nearly four decades, died of lung cancer early Friday at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 88. Friends said he collapsed while walking on Howard Street last month. He had continued to reside at 214 W. Mulberry St., where he was born and his parents had a grocery store that he later turned into his French restaurant Known for his sweet potato soup and bouillabaisse, he charmed regular customers in a bohemian atmosphere at what he named Martick's Restaurant Francais.

Editor: I'm not one to write a letter to the editor, but I had to speak my mind on this issue. I find it insulting that Del. Rick Impallaria wants to put a tax on Wegmans supermarket just because they are calling it the Wegmans of Bel Air even though it's located in Abingdon. He strikes me as another politician who justs wants a way by any means to tax. The citizens of Harford County have welcomed with open arms this new Wegmans store. People from various counties are coming into Harford County to spend their money at this Harford County Wegmans.

A soldier on leave from Afghanistan was shot and killed in Baltimore while on the way back from a grocery store with his wife Sunday, according to police. Clifford Jamar Williams, 22, a private stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and his wife were returning from a grocery store when a gunman approached their vehicle and fired several rounds into the driver's side of his 2004 Acura SUV, according to Anthony Guglielmi, the Police Department's chief spokesman. Police had no suspects or a motive in the shooting.

Stop Shop & Save.And Shoot.The aliens have landed and, of course, headed straight for the grocery store for supplies, the same way folks flock to the Food Lion minutes after reaching Ocean City. A pair of alien chasers are close behind, running down the dairy aisle, crashing into a store employee as they round the potato chip display."Where's the [really, really bad epithet in gerund form] cereal?" yells one of the alien hunters, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Blond from "Reservoir Dogs."

Much of the draw of a small, neighborhood grocery store is the neighborliness it fosters. In the Roland Park area we've had several over time. Graul's once sat where Eddie's on Roland Avenue is today. Graul's was also farther down Roland in the space where Roland Park Wine & Liquor is. Victor's sat at the center of the Roland Park Shopping Center, and the A&P at the corner of Roland and Colorado Avenues. Today Eddie's on Roland Avenue is the only small grocery store in the Roland Park area.