INDIANAPOLIS — East side residents say pictures can’t truly capture what they’ve experienced at their local Kroger. They say the conditions should not be acceptable at their neighborhood grocery store.
“When people see this, it sends a message that this is okay,” said Jeff Bullock.
Shoppers say they can’t afford to lose the store and want Kroger to raise its standards.
“I started this collage back in July of this year,” said Bullock. "Every time I kept going in there, I was seeing this stuff. About six-months-ago I started to take pictures."
Bullock says he's been living in this east side community for roughly 20 years.
The pictures show dirty shelves, leaking coolers, damaged products and more at the Linwood Kroger on East 10th Street.
“The conditions inside the store are so disgusting that if you really go in there and look, get down underneath the shelves, God only knows what would be in there,” said Bullock.
After meeting with Bullock, WRTV's Amber Grigley stopped by the store and saw trash stuffed underneath leaky coolers and dirty shelves.
Bullock told Grigley he filed multiple complaints with the Marion County Public Health Department.
The health department says they did an inspection on Aug. 10 based on his complaints. The store was ordered to address several issues, which were all fixed when the health department did another inspection on Sept. 22. But they also found several other violations.
The department came back for reinspection on Oct. 2. The only violations not corrected were two “non-critical” violations for dirty shelving and non-functioning thermometers in the meal and dairy coolers and freezers. On Oct. 13, the Marion County Public Health Department said a reinspection found both violations were corrected.
“The cleanliness could be better,” said Robin Warfield.
Warfield also shared some of her frustrations with us, ranging from cleanliness to customer service, and the lack of products and working equipment.
"There's no carts here, there's no carts there. There's none there, there's none in the store. I can't even really shop the way I need to shop,” said Warfield.
Both Bullock and Warfield say it's disturbing to see the decline in quality at their go-to grocery store.
"I love Kroger. I just want them to clean it up," Warfield said.
"If they don't do something with this store to clean up — the parking lot, the trash that blows around affects the entire community. That's an anchor store for the plaza and it should be kept in a condition that represents our community,” Bullock said.
In a statement, Kroger said:
We strive to provide the best possible shopping experience in every one of our stores. In our review of the records, we found three examples in which inspectors found no validity to the customer complaint. In the more recent example, inspectors concluded virtually all concerns had been addressed and corrected. The remainder, considered “non-critical”, were subject to review today or tomorrow. We trust the results will again be satisfactory.
We have already planned to add new carts to the store, repair others, and will make cosmetic improvements that will ensure our Linwood Kroger is, like our other stores, a place our associates love to work and our customers love to shop.
