Several of Thursday morning’s shoppers at Longmont’s Lucky’s Market got their purchases bagged by a Colorado congressman.
U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, toured the store at 700 Ken Pratt Blvd. and visited with employees before donning an apron and taking to the store’s public address system to announce his presence and tell customers: “If you’d like to participate in ‘government in the grocery,’ we’re here.”
The first woman to go through the checkout line being manned by Gardner was Nancy Putnam of Longmont, who watched as Gardner bagged the asparagus, avocados, grapefruit, lemons and tomatoes she’d just bought.
In response to a question from the congressman, Putnam said her home on Twin Peaks Circle was one of those hit by September’s floods. Gardner told her that legislation is being considered to assist flood victims.
Randy Johnson, another Longmont resident patronizing the market on Thursday morning, said he’d like to write Gardner about some of Johnson’s concerns about government issues. Gardner staff aide Dan Betts gave Johnson his business card with an address for him to send those concerns.
Johnson told the Times-Call that he’s dissatisfied with “the general direction of the country,” at both the national and state levels.
Gardner, for his part, didn’t appear to be pitching particularly partisan political positions during his 1 ½ -hour stop at Lucky’s, one of the occasional visits he makes to businesses in Longmont and other communities in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District. He later toured WP Manufacturing at 1198 Boston Ave., which was hit hard by the September flood. He Tweeted afterwards: “… small manufacturing biz doing amazing work. Hit hard by flood but back running strong!”
His morning at Lucky’s coincided with the store’s monthly “Five percent day,” when the store partners with an area non-profit to give 5 percent of its net sales to that organization.
Thursday’s share of store receipts was destined for the Front Range Farm Relief Fund, an organization that’s helping area farmers recover from the September floods.
Gardner stopped by a Farm Relief Fund table staffed by Michael Brownlee and Laurie Loughrin, two representatives of the Local Food Shift Group — an organization that works to connect Front Range consumers with local growers and food producers — and discovered that Brownlee also grew up in Yuma and that he and Gardner were familiar with each other’s families.
Gardner told Brownlee and Loughrin that too many people are unaware that they can actually buy their food that was grown locally from outlets such as Lucky’s.
“We’re actually working on a rural economic bill” that could, if adopted, help open up new markets for farmers, Gardner said.
Jeslyn Hamming, the Lucky’s marketing coordinator who guided Gardner through a tour of the store before he tried his hand at bagging groceries, told the congressman that the chain encourages the purchases of local food products, putting tags on display shelves identifying those items that are “home grown.”
As Gardner traveled the store’s aisles, he joked to his aide that “I knew I should have brought the cooler.”
Lucky’s store staffers offered Gardner a gift of a pound of the store’s cured and smoked bacon, but he insisted on paying for it.
As the congressman exited the store with that package of bacon, another customer, Longmont resident Peter Champ, approached Gardner to say that “I support the Affordable Care Act,” the health-insurance law that draws frequent criticisms from Gardner and most other federal GOP lawmakers.
Champ complained that congressional debates over that law are less about helping individuals with their health-care needs and more about Republican efforts to repeal it.
Gardner told Champ that while he agreed that the health-insurance and health-care systems weren’t working prior to passage of the act, there are “still a lot of issues that need to be resolved.”
Gardner told the Times-Call that he’s been hearing from constituents who are worried about the impacts of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Other issues that appear to be on the minds of 4th Congressional District residents, Gardner said, include “a lot of concerns about the economy, overall,” as well as problems encountered in trying to recover from last fall’s floods and worries about the continuing drought in southeast Colorado.
The 4th Congressional District seat is up for election this year. Gardner is seeking a third two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Trinidad Democrat Vic Meyers, a case manager for the Colorado Department of Corrections, also is running for the post.
Contact Times-Call staff writer John Fryar at 303-684-5211 or jfryar@times-call.com
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