It’s been just over two months since San Diego enacted a first-in-the-nation ordinance requiring in-store alternatives to digital-only grocery deals, and invited residents to submit complaints if they believed any stores in the city were not complying.
The first complaint has now come in. But it’s unclear whether the city plans on investigating it – which raises questions about how effective the much-discussed, thoroughly-debated, hard-fought measure actually is.
The Grocery Pricing Transparency Ordinance, which took effect in October, states that “any grocery store that offers publicly available digital discounts to consumers for the purchase of groceries must provide in-store alternatives, so consumers have access to the publicly available digital discount without needing to use a smartphone or the internet.” The idea is to ensure that shoppers without digital devices, or the tech-savviness to use them, aren’t excluded from accessing the same promotional prices as other shoppers who are able to activate digital-only offers online…