SHOP 'N SAVE IN CAPE NOW CLOSED

Shop 'n Save has left the Cape Girardeau grocery market, but the St. Louis-headquartered company recently increased its presence in the St. Louis market with the purchase of six Price Chopper supermarkets.

Shop 'n Save Warehouse Foods Inc. announced in mid-February that the 60,000-square-foot store at 254 S. Silver Springs Road in Cape Girardeau was being phased out after five years in business.

The closure eliminated 70 jobs. Employees were given an opportunity to transfer with the company to the St. Louis area.

Prescriptions on file at the store's pharmacy department have all been transferred to Super D Discount Drugs, 2281 Broadway.

Shop 'n Save, owned by Supervalu Inc. of Eden Prairie, Minn., now has 30 stores in the St. Louis area following the purchase of the Price Chopper stores.

The Price Chopper stores, owned by Roswil Inc. of Springfield, Mo., have been boycotted by two unions, but the unions removed their pickets after Roswil announced it would sell the stores to Shop 'n Save at an undisclosed price.

The sale is expected to be finalized in about two weeks.

Roswil bought the stores from Warehouse Foods Inc. last November. He immediately laid off 300 union workers at five of the stores. The sixth store, in Ellisville, about 20 miles west of St. Louis, was already non-union.

United Food and Commercial Workers Union Locals 655 and 88 had been picketing those five stores since late last year. In January the National Labor Relations Board said Roswil broke labor law by refusing to hire union workers and by replacing the United Food and Commercial Workers with a "company union."

The NLRB also filed a complaint against the Congress of Independent Unions, the union designated by Roswil to represent the workers. A hearing on that complaint had been scheduled for Tuesday, but was postponed until Monday.

Bob Pattillo, president and chief executive of Shop 'n' Save, said the laid-off union workers would be interviewed for jobs.