John Glionna banned for life from Berkeley Bowl

So the Berkeley Bowl piece that ran today as a Column One touched a chord: I received dozens of e-mails from folks who know the store and agree with the story's take on Berkeley as a place where the screws of liberalism and sanity are racheted a little too tightly.

Most people got a kick out of the fact that offenders who commit crimes such as felony food noshing without paying are banned from the Bowl for good.

But not everyone was laughing. Owner Glenn Yasuda (in photo, at right) called to complain about  the story's tone, especially the portrayal of the management's tough line on food samplers.

The upshot, he told me: I've been banned from the Berkeley Bowl. For life.

--John Glionna

Photo: Randi Lynn Beach / For The Times

 

Comments

[fred dodsworth]

You should be banned.
Folks tend to forget that running a small neighborhood business, employing nearly a hundred Union employees, paying real estate taxes and workers comp and FISA and health insurance leaves little in profits for any but the mega-corporations.

As someone who has shopped at Berkeley Bowl for years, I too, have seen 'sampling' turned into a 'Free food for the homeless program' at the Bowl. It's one thing to taste a berry to make sure they're ripe and entirely another to stuff your face with free food at the shopkeeper's expense.

In his 70s, Glen runs a very successful, very delicious grocery. He gets up every morning long before you are awake to get the very best from the area's wholesale produce markets. He deserves and needs to make a reasonable profit so that we can continue to sell great quality items at reasonable prices. If you disagree, vote with your dollars and shop at Safeway where too often the food is literally spoiled! And sample all you want of their toxic, pesticide-saturated, plastic-covered, fake food.

[Darrell Rupe]

Man, I live in Berkeley. You're talking about one of the best food markets of all time. I'd recommend some serious apologizing. You'll be happier in the end.

[Jack]

It's guys like Mr. Yasuda who give liberals a bad name. Sure it's one thing to ban someone who samples food without paying for it. It's another thing entirely to ban a reporter for life based on a bad review. After all, the last time I checked, we still live in a nation where we're allowed to speak our minds -- that's one right even King George Bush II hasn't been able to take away from us yet.

Exercise your rights. Boycott the Berkeley Bowl until Mr. Yasuda grows up...

[jad]

I don't know, Fred. The main difference between what you call "sampling" and what you contemptuously refer to as "Free food for the homeless" seems to be the income of the person doing the sampling. I agree: "It's one thing" as you say, for a homeless person to steal food; it's quite another for a wealthy patron to steal the same food to see if it's up to their standards.

[csalam]

I've shopped at the 'bowl' for years and have friends and family who have worked there so know it well. It can be crowded but it's by no means as unreasonable and odd as you described it. It's just an exceptionally good and busy local store in my opinion run very professionally and we're lucky we have something like it in our town. That goes double for Glenn and Diane based on what I've heard. I don't know who mailed you re: the 'screws of liberalism' or how you can pass off cheap shots as journalism in a paper as respected as the LA times, but if these 'dozens of folks' have something to say, let's see their comments here. I think you're really reading too much into whatever you've heard. It's just a really good grocery store with an excellent produce department and long lines. No more. No less.

[Huh?]

Did I just read this correctly? A member of the media banned because he wasn't gushingly complimentary? Did Berkeley just make a play usually reserved by McCain/Palin?

[Wondering]

So much for "free speech" in the Berkely Bowl, eh? Don't like your tone, you're banned for life. Sounds more like a dictatorship.

[Willie FuFu]

Fred, Darrell, I don't get your anger regarding the original Column One piece. If anything, it makes the people and the city of Berkeley look bad. The store's management is simply dealing with the group dynamic of the place.

You couldn't pay me to live there. Berkeley and its residents epitomize the saying "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

I'll take Ralphs in Koreatown over Berkeley Bowl any day. At least I don't have to shop next to old hippies who apparently have developed a keen sense of entitlement.

[Jones II]

Berkeley Bowl is a dump. way over priced and smells like arm pits. I never shop there.

[Atter Cob]

So basically you stated your opinion of the store and because it was not all positive he banned you? That's incredibly petty of him. It's a great grocery store, but apparently the popularity has gone to his head. It's also very contrary to the same liberal mentality that drives most of his customers to shop in his locally run store. Free speech, is not allowed at Berkeley Bowl.
Also, the whole banned for life thing is ridiculous... how do they expect to remember the faces of every banned person? It seems pretty clear that Glenn Yasuda has some anger issues.

[Mary Duan]

I've only lived in Berkeley for about three months (Hi Fred, when's the next neighborhood wine night?) but I have to say, shopping at the Bowl makes me vaguely homicidal. Strike the vaguely--it makes me absolutely homicidal. I feel my blood pressure rise the second I get anywhere near the parking lot. They should call a SIG alert on the produce section. Covering the LA riots was less stressful.

Having said that--great produce.

[Ted Chabasinski]

I live in Berkeley and shop at the Bowl often. I even sample stuff once in a while, and no one has made a big deal out of it.

They have really good food at good prices, and I'm not amused at this snide Berkeley-bashing.

I think Los Angeles is hardly a place to make nasty comments about the quality of life in Berkeley. I mean, if the cops see someone walking on the street in LA, you get arrested for not driving, right?

EVERYBODY knows that's true.

[wescovington]

I think all this story needs is to find out that Glenn Yasuda lent somebody here an armoire.

[SJ]

Why you gotta hate on the bowl? Have fun shopping at Ralphs.

[samin]

i live in berkeley, am a professional cook, and shop at berkeley bowl only under the most dire circumstances. my blood pressure rises when i get within a block of that place, and i completely disagree about the supremacy of its produce. i've been cursed at in the parking lot, and wrongfully accused of stealing by an employee, who (illegally, i later found out) body searched me for some cough syrup when i had a 104 degree fever. when she didn't find anything, i didn't get an apology or anything--she and the security guard just turned and walked away.

i loved the piece, and think it's really funny that the author is now "banned for life." i love living in berkeley, but sometimes the people really get to me. i totally get what the piece was trying to convey, and besides, we all have to have a sense of humor about things, right?

[Josephine Talgat]

Glionna probably should do some fact-checking, here. I was at the Bowl today and tons of people sampled small items in produce (grapes, peas); nobody said a thing.

Last I heard, if you take a bite out of a peach at Safeway, they kick you out, too.

I've been there weekly for months and never saw a single one of the weird things mentioned in the article, which leads me to question where Glionna is getting his ideas...

...not to be too unkind to Glionna, but I think he's probably making things up or exaggerating for the sake of his LA readers who'll buy anything about "Berkeley weirdness".

Berkeley Bowl is just a ridiculously crowded, ridiculously popular grocery store. The prices are high for everything but produce, but gourmands love it because the selection is massive. There's really nothing much else to say about it.

Still, pleased to see a place I like get some press! Now I know why the produce is so good.

[GO BEARS!]

Berkeley Bowl = hippie battle ground.

All these old hippies are long expired in their ability to do battle against the man, the machine or whoever hippies will be hating on Nov. 5 once Bush is gone.

So now these old fart hippies do battle in the aisles and parking lots of BB. This article was completely dead on in its description of BB both the good and the bad. Sometimes when I'm pushing my cart i nodded off and swear I am actually at Medieval Times.

Regardless, BB is by far my favorite and THE BEST grocery store in Berkeley (and anywhere else I've been). The food is so good you forget about the manic hippies waiting to ram your cart with their priuses in the parking lot.

5 kinds of sweet potatos.... its amazing. to think i thought there were just yams.

[lawrence]

The bowl is fine - if you take a few valium 1/2 hr. before going in. I've never been to a place with such interesting and affordable foodstuffs that is so socially strung out and one puff away from being the next "columbine" in my whole life.

[Oh]

Very few Berkeley Bowl shoppers are the type who will stand near the fruit and eat at their hearts content. However, there are some shoppers who are as liberal as they can be will cut in line, leave their carts in line while they shop and then argue that their rights are more important than yours as they push their carts to the front of the line.

The Berkeley bowl staff usually will Zen out and let the customers argue while everyone else watches whats going on. The more righteous and indignant seem to always win as they smirk their way to the front of the line.

Oh, the food is the best part of this experience.

[Madison]

So, I too live in Berkeley and have heard about the Bowl's policies before but I find it amusing how they waylay "long time" customers. I mean, the only people who are going to be sampling are the people who have been there long enough to know that, until recently, its kind of expected, so now they're going through the trouble of banning customers who the bowl would still make a profit on. *boggle*

Also, its hardly a small neighborhood business. It might not be a chain but they make huge coin.

[ex-Berkeley guy]

The article was full of the ridiculous hyperbole and sloppiness that's becoming all too common in journalism these days. I'm still scratching my head over this graf:

"Store manager Larry Evans says the policy is a fair response to doctors, lawyers and college professors who help themselves to bags of cookies, nuts and vitamins, stick their fingers in pies and guzzle from bottles of sake, assuming the rules don't apply to them."

Did Larry Evans say all that? That someone he knows to be a doctor or lawyer came in guzzled sake or stole vitamins? If he did, why didn't we get more detail on this great anecdote? I wanna know which Cal professor is sticking his fingers in pie and chomping down vitamins. Sounds apocryphal to me. I know the writer is not covering politics, and you want a bit of style in Column One, but please. This type of cartoonish exaggeration does not belong in the LA Times.

That said, the ban is just as ridiculous ... but hey, I suppose Mr. Yasuda was just responding in kind.

[Patrick Cheatham]

Funny to read about The Bowl in the LA Times -- I've lived a half block from there for about 6 years, and have had all kinds of experiences. I will say that the staff there have always been very friendly and helpful. I won't comment on Berkeleyites, but I can tell you that the amount of car traffic The Bowl brings to my neighborhood is enormous. Being a pedestrian is an iffy thing to do.

Not sure I can link to things here, but here's a 360-degree panorama of the produce section at The Bowl. The article seemed a little short on pictures of the place. Enjoy!

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/worldwidepanorama/wwp305/html/PatrickCheatham.html

[karen dapello]

wow, once again, everybody ready to jump on the "let's bash Berkeley" bandwagon??? being born and raised in Berkeley, i take offense at the whole color this article and it's commenters use. yes, Berkeley's different, and weird, and bizarre, and guess what? we really don't give a rat's ass what the rest of the world thinks of us, so just keep yapping.....you have no idea what a wonderful place you are missing, but that's okay, leaves more for us who DO appreciate the eccentricities of one of the most famous/infamous cities in the world!

[Jean Shirk]

I just read your story about the world's best grocery store, Berkeley Bowl. I shop there a few times a month, but except for the descriptions of the bountiful variety in the produce section, I didn't recognize the place.

Not once in the 10 or so years I've been shopping there has anyone ever been rude to me. Maybe it's partly in the way I approach it: I know the parking lot is going to be full, so I park behind the building and walk a little further. I know the produce aisles will be crowded, so I park my shopping cart and bring the produce to it, rather than wheeling my cart around the aisles. But maybe most of all, when I walk into Berkeley Bowl and gaze at the blessed heavenly food they offer, I am so darn grateful for the place that I walk around with a smile on my face the entire time. Who cares if you have to wait 15 minutes in line to buy the sweetest organic nectarines in California? Or the best fresh-baked bread? Or the Tofurky for Thanksgiving dinner? Me, I'm just thankful -- and I count my lucky stars that I get to shop at Berkeley Bowl!

[beefrank]

Yasuda can now officially be dubbed the 'Produce Nazi'....No apples for you!!!!! Get out!!!!