The Seattle City Council declared a public health emergency on October 28, 2025, responding to a wave of grocery store closures that threaten to cut off food access for entire neighborhoods. The move, which includes emergency legislation banning restrictive covenants that prevent new grocery stores from opening, represents one of the most aggressive local government responses to a growing national problem. I find the action notable not just for what it does, but for what it reveals about how ill-equipped existing policy tools are to handle the slow collapse of neighborhood food infrastructure.
Seattle Declares a Public Health Emergency Over Food Access
When a city council frames grocery store closures as a public health crisis rather than a market correction, it signals that the usual economic logic has failed. The Seattle City Council took that step by passing an emergency ordinance specifically designed to prevent the creation of food deserts in the city’s neighborhoods. The legislation targets restrictive covenants and negative-use restrictions, which are contractual clauses that landlords or departing retailers attach to commercial properties to block competitors or similar businesses from moving in. In practical terms, a grocery chain that closes a location can, through these covenants, legally prevent another grocer from leasing the same space for years. The result is a vacant storefront in a neighborhood that desperately needs fresh food, held hostage by a contract written to protect a company that already left.
The council’s action, described in its announcement on boosting food access, uses the emergency declaration to justify fast-tracking the covenant ban and related enforcement tools. By tying the ordinance to a public health emergency, lawmakers sidestepped a slower, more incremental process and underscored that food access is as fundamental to community well-being as clean water or safe housing. This matters because food deserts do not form gradually in ways that allow for leisurely policy debate. Once a store closes and a covenant locks the property, residents who relied on that store face immediate consequences: longer trips to buy groceries, higher prices at convenience stores, and reduced access to fresh produce and protein. For elderly residents, those without cars, and families on tight budgets, the closure of a single supermarket can reshape daily life overnight.
Why Restrictive Covenants Deserve Scrutiny
The decision to zero in on restrictive covenants is a targeted response to a specific and well-documented mechanism that accelerates food deserts. These clauses are not obscure legal artifacts. They are standard tools in commercial real estate, used by retailers across industries to limit competition even after they vacate a property. In the grocery sector, the effect is particularly damaging because supermarkets serve as anchor tenants in many commercial districts. When a grocer leaves and attaches a negative-use restriction to the lease, it does not just remove one store. It can suppress the viability of an entire shopping center, driving away foot traffic and discouraging other businesses from investing in the area.
Seattle’s ordinance attempts to break that cycle by making such covenants unenforceable when they block grocery operations. The approach is narrowly drawn, which is both its strength and its limitation. On one hand, it avoids the legal and political complications of broader commercial regulation, focusing instead on a clearly defined practice with visible consequences. On the other, it does nothing to address the underlying economic pressures that cause grocery chains to close locations in the first place, including thin profit margins, rising labor costs, shifting consumer preferences, and competition from online delivery services. The covenant ban is a necessary first step, but it functions more like removing a dam from a dry riverbed: the water still has to come from somewhere, and without new investment or alternative models, empty shelves will not magically refill themselves.
The Gap Between Emergency Action and Structural Reform
Declaring a public health emergency is a powerful legal and rhetorical tool, but it carries expectations that a single ordinance may struggle to meet. Emergency declarations typically unlock expedited processes, additional funding streams, and heightened public attention. In this case, the declaration enabled the council to move quickly on the covenant ban and to frame food access as a collective responsibility rather than an individual consumer problem. What it cannot do is compel a grocery chain to open a new store in a neighborhood where the economics do not pencil out. The fundamental challenge of urban food access is that the communities most in need of affordable groceries are often the least profitable markets for large retailers. Low population density in some areas, high commercial rents in others, and the logistical costs of urban distribution all work against the kind of large-format supermarket that most Americans rely on for weekly shopping…