France Clamps Down on Delivery Depot 'Dark Stores' (bbc.com) 59
smooth wombat writes: France has taken steps to outlaw so-called dark stores - city-centre food depots used for instant home deliveries ordered over the internet. Faced by growing protests from local people as well as city authorities, President Emmanuel Macron's government has decreed that the stores be classified as warehouses, rather than as shops - meaning that in Paris and other cities most will probably be forced to close. Run by half a dozen competing companies such as Gorillas, Cajoo, Getir, Flink and Gopuff, "dark stores" have proliferated in France as elsewhere over the last two years after Covid confinement popularised internet food shopping. Advertising in Paris urges householders to get their food delivered in less than 10 minutes - or "quicker than a double by Benzema," referring to the French football star. A campaign by Cajoo shows "Alex" doing his shopping by smartphone while sitting on the lavatory. But residents of buildings where "dark stores" have replaced pre-existing grocery shops are angry about noise from early morning lorries and the disruption caused by squads of deliverers on electric bicycles and scooters. City officials - who spent millions to safeguard the high street against out-of-town shopping centres - are worried that the new threat from "quick commerce" will drain life from public spaces and hasten the trend to an "atomised" society of solitary consumers.
That's not PC (Score:1)
call them "photon-deprived stores".
Then again, I'm also photon-deprived as my pale [censored] demonstrates.
Good luck with that (Score:1)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Informative)
They open "Stores" in places that aren't zoned from them. They're getting banned all over Europe right now.
Guess their run-around on zoning laws ran into the law finally.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Do consumers really want it? Or is it being subsidized by large holding corporations in order to price out local businesses?
"3 billion in venture capitol"
"Getir’s July valuation of $7.6 billion"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
Maybe you're right, perhaps that ship may have already sailed thanks to visionary philanthropist billionaires looking to defeat obsolete nationalist identities and secularism. Their vision for open societies rests on installing a world government that will recognize and reward ($) their progressive ideals and huge investments in political power that will save us from global warming and racism.
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is a loosing battle
Oh, I know about such things, believe me.
Sincerely,
Spelling Nazi
Depends on which consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all well and good to be "disruptive" but it pays to think things through too.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe. But "warehouses" seems a better description of them than shops. I suppose that store could fit either. My french isn't good enough to know how the french make that kind of distinction, but "warehouse" seems about right.
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I donâ(TM)t want to pay huge delivery and service fees. But the crypto fascist bleeding heart liners say that we can just have people work for tips, we have to pay them. So it costs $10 more to have my groceries delivered. And millions are denied employment that meets their skill level.
The fact is that these shops are often hidden, unregulated, and dangerous. In other countries the race to the bottom has le
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Funny)
You sure it's not a tightening battle?
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Fighting what consumers want is a loosing battle, just look at how successful the War on Drugs has been.
FTS: "... residents of buildings where 'dark stores' have replaced pre-existing grocery shops are angry about noise from early morning lorries and the disruption caused by squads of deliverers on electric bicycles and scooters."
Those unhappy residents are also consumers, so by your definition the stores themselves are "fighting what consumers want".
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Fighting what consumers want is a loosing battle, just look at how successful the War on Drugs has been.
Consumers want a paradox. They want everything instantly but insist no warehouses or industry is built with 20km of their house.
You say "good luck with that", but this is very easy to solve. Unlike some drugs you can actually hide a large scale delivery operation. Netherlands has clamped down on dark stores recently and several companies have already just quit the market as a result. The result is nothing like the war on drugs.
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*can't
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Yeah and that's even more relevant in this case. This is Paris we're talking about (or Amsterdam and Rotterdam, both who beat Paris to the punch). I live in the damn suburbs and have a choice of 3 grocery stores withing 7min walk (or literally 1-2min on a quick cycle).
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Consumers want a paradox. They want everything instantly but insist no warehouses or industry is built with 20km of their house.
This isn't so complicated. Wanting fast/cheap/easy food is a want. It's a want because nobody is obligated to provide it--the free market will find a way if some entrepreneur can manage it. On the other hand, not having loud logistics activity happening in the wee hours of the night is a need. People are entitled to quiet during the night, and that right can't be traded away for fa
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And sorry for the missing "quote" tag at the beginning.
Re:They'll find ways around it (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't RTFA but I think you are misunderstanding. These are not take-out only restaurants, they are delivery only grocery stores, which are being classified here as "warehouses" rather than "supermarkets."
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I haven't RTFA but I think you are misunderstanding. These are not take-out only restaurants, they are delivery only grocery stores, which are being classified here as "warehouses" rather than "supermarkets."
Yeah but TWX has been saving that indignantly outraged rant in favour of freedumb for ages. Let him have his moment even if it is incoherent ;)
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... more delivery traffic and less foot traffic likely does cause more of a disturbance. That said, I don't know if it's enough to warrant a crackdown.
The companies are doing a technicality-based end-run around zoning laws which certainly violates the intent, if not the letter, of those laws. That alone warrants a crackdown.
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That is technically incorrect. They are stores that sell goods locally.
No it's not. Zoning laws define specific types of business, not just commerical or what not. Selling locally does not allow you to be a delivery depot. Incidentally the issue here is that most of these aren't even zoned for selling anything. In many cases these dark stores are built in residential buildings not zoned for any commercial activity at all.
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Or they'll move where they are actually allowed to be zones. All this shock and dismay that there are actually laws on the books could have been avoided by investing in a lawyer. The adage that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission seems to be the modern business practice. In short, they're not clamping down on these sorts of businesses, only where these businesses are being set up.
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Or they'll move where they are actually allowed to be zones.
And where in Paris would that be? 10 minute deliveries from where exactly?
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Then maybe don't promise what you can't fulfill. Does "this law gets in the way of our business plan" hold sway in front of a judge? I know it's the Uber way of doing business, but...
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And where in Paris would that be? 10 minute deliveries from where exactly?
Better question for you. This is Paris. If you can't get what you need on foot within 10 minutes you probably don't even live in Paris.
These companies make no sense in Europe.
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lot's of pizza places are pick up / delivery only (Score:2)
lot's of pizza places are pick up / delivery only.
So all they really need to do is and an pickup window and allow no fee pick ups.
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These businesses will find ways around a ban. They'll introduce walk-up window service. They'll add sidewalk tables and chairs, or will renovate just enough for there to be a front with some minimal number of tables, walk-up service only.
Firstly this isn't about fast food or restaurants. Secondly they are battling this front through zoning laws. Putting a window or chairs down doesn't do shit if you are zoned for any commercial enterprise.
As for neighbor complaints, I have a difficult time believing that these ghost-kitchens are noisier than public restaurants
You need to RTFA. It's not about ghost kitchen vs restaurant. It's delivery depot vs normal house, and yes the delivery scooters are a major issue for traffic, safety, and noise in residential areas not designed for them. France isn't the first. The Netherlands have largely already shown these companies th
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society of solitary consumers (Score:1)
City officials are worried that the new threat from "quick commerce" will drain life from public spaces and hasten the trend to an "atomised" society of solitary consumers.
This is ironic after the same officials stoked covid fears for 2 years and actually created "an "atomised" society of solitary consumers"
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City officials are worried that the new threat from "quick commerce" will drain life from public spaces and hasten the trend to an "atomised" society of solitary consumers.
This is ironic after the same officials stoked covid fears for 2 years and actually created "an "atomised" society of solitary consumers"
It's not ironic in the least. In both cases they were / are doing the best they could to protect the well-being of their constituents. Your editorializing about stoking covid fears does nothing to change that.
Ensuring More Protest (Score:1)
Preserving old lifestyles with over-regulation (Score:1)
People mostly want to avoid human contact and the super-market shopping hassle. The virus lockdowns required it.
And now that everything's open again, they again refuse to accept what people wants.
Re:Preserving old lifestyles with over-regulation (Score:5, Informative)
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Enjoy your freedom from dignity.
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Re:Competitive Excuses (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah. I can just "hear" it now. The loud guttering rumble of that electric biker delivery gang coming down the street that disturbs....no one?
You have never been sleeping and a truck with a running engine started loading or unloading heavy material right under your open window in the summer, right?
Also, what makes you think that the only noise that a squad of delivery people will make, is that of their electric bikes? And not conversations, calls, laughs, etc. All that sound is multiplied in the early morning when the rest of the street is silent.
Not to mention that industrial kitchens (we're not talking about restaurants for 20 diners) pollute not only with sound, but with odors, smoke and other chemical reactions in, well, industrial quantities.
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You have never been sleeping and a truck with a running engine started loading or unloading heavy material right under your open window in the summer, right?
Urban villages. Walkable neighborhoods.Businesses on the ground floor, residences upstairs.
This is the dream of all the hipster urban planners.
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This is literally how European cities are built, since before there were automobiles. That's why noisy activities are banned.
It's probably not just that (Score:4, Informative)
France is thinking about what might happen if these places run the high street out of business and that venture capital dries up. It's one of two things, either prices get jacked up to crazy amounts or they all go under and there's a giant mess while people scramble to re-open grocery stores.
City planning is a thing. You should go play some Sim City and get a sense for it. City Skyline's is pretty great too.
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The loud guttering rumble of that electric biker delivery gang coming down the street that disturbs....no one?
There's nothing quite about people running a business regardless of what type of vehicle they drive. Bonus points for you being completely oblivious to this being about far more than just noise. Not every residential street is designed to have scooters warehousing in a central location. This has been a safety issue in some cities and is being banned in many places in Europe.
Fuck your 10min delivery. Be more organised and plan ahead like a normal person. The rest of us shouldn't suffer.
Dark Store Theory (Score:2)
I thought this was going to be about the scheme where businesses "build something that is fundamentally useless to anyone but [themselves] [slate.com]" as a way to pay less property taxes on it.
But anyway, warehouses belong in industrial areas. If you want to build an apartment building in a warehouse district, that should be fine (which unlike Japan [blogspot.com] isn't legal here in most of the USA, we're a lot like Communists that way) but it makes sense that building a warehouse in a residential district should not be ok.
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it makes sense that building a warehouse in a residential district should not be ok
Who was there first? Doesn't matter in most liberal cities. Residents scream about the noise, dirt and traffic. Do you really think that the city will tell them to get out? It's a common ploy to get hold of valuable developable property. Entice some po' (usually colored) people in next to the manufacturing because cheap. Wait for the complaints. Close down the businesses, who sell to the residential developers. Nice, expensive condos go up. Colored folks get kicked out and moved to the next warehouse distri
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Citation needed.
Yet another example (Score:3)
of politically connected companies using government to kill competition
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Nope. Most of these places are being shut down due to a) breaches of zoning laws, and b) complaints from locals. It's a good conspiracy theory, but you don't need political connections when your opposition is already hated and are doing themselves out of business.
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They are like Uber. They think the law doesn't apply to them and they can subvert it to gain a competitive advantage.