Hopland’s Geiger’s Market Abruptly Shutters Its Doors
[Photo by Matt LaFever]
In a statement posted on social media yesterday, Sunday, July 7, 2024, the market expressed gratitude to the community:
“Thank you Hopland! When we started the project in 2021 of restoring the old Hopland Superette to a new community market, the spirit, energy, and economics were well aligned. Three years later nearly to the day, various challenges proved too difficult and Geiger’s Market has closed. We remain very proud of the beautifully renovated grocery store which will one day again serve the Hopland Community. We’re extremely grateful for your support and wish you all the very best. -The Team at Geiger’s Market.”
On July 3rd, 2024, the market announced an “Independence Day Discount” enticing customers with “30% off all marked prices through the weekend”.
CEO Michael Maciel did not respond to requests for confirmation and comments regarding the closure and the challenges that led to it.
The Hopland location’s closure follows the shutdown of Geiger’s Long Valley Market in Laytonville, which ceased operations seven months ago in December 2023. The Long Valley Market on the 44000 block of U.S. Highway 101 also closed abruptly, leaving the Northern Mendocino community without a vital grocery option.
The Hopland Superette, a staple in the community since 1957, was owned and operated by the Kong family starting in 1967 until 2015. Former owner Tod Kong expressed his disappointment over the closure of Geiger’s Market, which had struggled to gain traction.
“We are very disappointed and sad that Geiger’s Hopland Market has closed,” Kong said. “We are so hoping that a new general grocery store will go into the space soon because we really need a great place to buy groceries in Hopland.”
The building is now for sale listed for $2.35 million being advertised as a “turnkey opportunity with no expense spared in creating a business that can serve the local community.”
Despite the store’s public confirmation of its immediate closure, the building is still festooned with two prominent signs that read “Now Open”.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
No surprise here. The people who bought and then shut down both Laytonville and Hopland figured out a scheme where they make more money buying and shutting down these stores then they do keeping them open. American Business 101- just have no morals; Greed is Good a la Gordon Gekko or Donald Trump school of business….and until we close those kinds of loopholes this is what investment scoundrels will continue to do. No surprise here, move along…
I just can’t believe they’ll make their original investment back via sale of the building. Just because they’re asking over $2mm doesn’t mean someone will pay that amount. Hope not anyway, serves them right for screwing Laytonville – greedy bastards . . .
People do not like to acknowledge this. People do not understand the depth of it. The collapse of the Cannabis industry has distorted everything financial across the state. If you think of all of the black market industry the legal industry and all of the affiliated Industries it’s massive. The label producers, the soil producers, water delivery, fertilizer stores, extra meals for the crews, a nice vacation after you get done, being able to pay for doctor’s visits for cash. Nuce new boobies and an SUV to haul the kiddis up the mountain. Going to Scripps Institute in San Diego, all paid for with cash. Many, who were not directly in the industry did not understand what was propping them up. How people could afford to go to the fancy stores or the fancy restaurants. It was disposable income of the blue collar man. Now all that’s left propping anything up is White Collar industry and it’s not able to do that alone.
I still am stunned by the lack of understanding about the amount of money and energy that cannabis poured into the economy from the ground up. Grocery store clerks could buy a new set of tires without feeling sick. Parents could afford to spend some time coaching. Donations were made generously to non-profits.
Here here !!
Not to mention ripoffs, murders, home invasions, worker exploitation, human trafficking, rape, child abuser and neglect, hard drugs, environmental damage, and other crimes and social ills fueled by the outlaw economy.
Even in the glory days it was a mixed bag of positive and negative impacts.
Crime I s everywhere. Certainly it increased the more exposed the industry got. When it was more of the don’t ask don’t tell. You only went places if you were invited to work you didn’t talk about them there wasn’t so much shenanigans going on. Once it opened up to this free market industry everybody blabbing, everybody bragging that attitude destroyed the ethic behind it. All the local trim crews late 90s til around 2017 were prolific and profitable. Mostly single moms, grateful for the ability to care for the kids a little better. Have a nice birthday party etc. Keep the fridge full no food stamps needed. Even before when the logging industry collapsed there was always cannabis to prop people up when the fishing industry collapsed there was Cannabis to prop people up now cannabis has collapsed and there’s nothing to prop people up. The wine industry is tanking as well. Is it any wonder all the increase in homeless, efas recipients in our local region. All the disposable income that floated a lot of businesses. No more. Trimming now maybe 70 a pound rate. They will have ya trim the tedious popcorns all day $35 bucks dont even cover the sitters anymore. Huge issue. Poof right before our eyes.
I believe your timeline is off.
Successive waves of green/greed rushers began as far back as 2000 if not earlier with 215 then really got cooking with AB 420 in 2004 with several more waves before Prop 64 in 2016.
This. 2000 is when organized crime ingress made the whole industry go absolutely insane. Since they’ve left, the traffic on the county road here is back to pre-2000 levels. (I’m here for the land)
Oops, my years are wrong. More like 1985 when the green/greed rushers began arriving…1990s when organized crime began arriving.
I lived it/live it. Came here 1984. Outdoor was 4500 per. No real indoor industry yet. Applied Hydroponics in San Rafael was the spot. 6800 was a common price point for indoor GDP. Per pound trimming became a thing around 1998 across industry by 2004. Deps beginning 2004, quiet popular by 2012, not favored by 2016, came in and out fast. the stutctures of the stems are iff. Cant fool the connoisseurs. Testing started 2006 ish now an industry standard.
It was the early 80’s when Hippie Jan and Fat Jack were executed so I’d say you need to move your timeline back further.
I think trimmers started getting pay cuts earlier than 2017, but other than that I agree, mostly. Except, I think most people knew a crash was coming. Any way you look at it, if you run through any number of possible way things could have happened, you still end up here. Moneys not really that important; if you work hard and have a little smarts you’ll figure something out.
Sure, but the comment you responded to was just speaking about the financial impact. And unambiguously, the cannabis black market was an incredible financial boon to our community.
We do not have any other industry that brings significant capital into our community from the outside. The impacts of that reality are going to take a long time to fully realize
Some of us tried to warn our neighbors against corporate “legalization”. Others naively embraced it as being “free” and “safe” and thereby sold us all down the river. Now we are here but….It is going to get worse. It is going to get worse. This is not where it ends….the entire industry is still in free fall. Our train left and will never come back and our area’s economy has not stabilized. Expect it to get worse. Sorry but that’s the real reality that will be “realized” in the next several years to come. Corporate takeovers for dimes on the dollar and federal “legalization” will be the final death knell. Enjoy the fruits of your fantasy embrace of permit pansy dreams and Have a Nice Day!!
It’s naive to assume rape, murder, child abuse etc. don’t have financial impacts. Add it all up and it’s not at all clear that weed was a net financial gain.
What you list is not the status quo of weed growing per se, it’s the status of society. As with society, boring regular stuff happens, but doesn’t make the news. 100,000 plants got watered today. Boring. 800 lbs of fresh deps went south today. Yawn. I just farted.
Imagine Paradise
Imagine yourself there
All of your fears are there with you
More please! Encore!
Paradise in Dreams
May Seldom Be as it Seems
While Kicking Bull Schemes
Glory Days of Weed
Funded Community Needs
Dreams Dissolve in Greed
That’s typical of any place that has a rush. Greed will follow every dollar. Cannabis, gold, liquor, gambling even the coffee industry has had it share of, greedy bastards, who take advantage of small coffee farmers Where there’s money there’s crime.
……and now it’s worse, go figure.
Absolutely there were negatives.
It’s been said before, but the sky-high prices of the old marijuana black market (or any black market) were a result of possible legal sanctions and criminal prosecution hanging over your head. “Legalization” removed a lot of that, and the crowds piled in. In spite of all the talk about legacy and terroir, the stuff is a relatively easy plant to grow. Almost anywhere. And, of course, the economy in general is now struggling under the accumulated weight of poor planning, bad policy and outright greed. The gold rush is over.
In the old days elbows went for $1600. After organized crime moved in the prices went sky-high.
I can tell you aren’t a grower when you said “relatively easy to plant and grow”. “A full nine yards” to grow 10lbs ain’t easy work.
I’m happy with my 6 plants. 🙂
In the REAL old days 4500 per outdoor. 6800 for GDP indoor 1990.
1979 – 1984 Old Days 🙂
Yeah 87 traded a pound for a good little truck. It was around 5 then. Grow 20 pounds at 5k each. Not too shabby.It was the days of brush n scrub growing. Pulling 20 pounds you were happy indeed. The dry time when all the good product was gone and harvest was a month or more away. Be begging for some nice trim. Hell hahaha…now you cant give the trim away.
I think I understood the cannabis economy here before it became legal. So what is the answer? What should the state / counties do re: cannabis now that it is legal to match the money that flowed through our towns before legalization.
Honestly, everything they could have done, they screwed up. The one thing they could still do, they’ve been dragging their feet on which is farmers markets for cannabis–let consumers meet their grower and build attachment/brand.
This is the thing that could make a small farm profitable again.
Having the police turn a blind eye to illegal weed was the sole reason it created such wealth in Humboldt Co. It created an artificial scarcity. There is no scenario where cannabis will ever be more than a niche market in a world where anyone can grow it. Even the best wine does not create mom and pop grape grower wealth.
?
Maybe police turning a blind eye has a precursory reason? On and on. Cause and effect is difficult to pinpoint, yes?
Depending on what you mean by wealth. If by wealth, do you mean Bezos? Then absolutely, I agree. But, if you mean, a job where you work on the land you love and make a decent if not luxurious living? Well, then I differ.
As defined by “match the money that flowed through our towns before legalization” in the OP’s post. Ìn other words a niche market but not one will do ever do that kind of profits. I suspect it would be a rare person who can produce an innovative product, brand and patent it, process it and create a market for it with cache enough to sell where the money. At best a supplemental income.
Money making on individual small holdings with plants is hard unless growing them is beyond the capability of most people. Remembering the tulip mania crash, plants are things created to reproduce themselve. For just about anyone.
But go ahead and surprise me. Anything is possible,
If the police turned a blind eye to weed how do you account for the raids, arrests and plant counts?
And if the police were turning a blind eye, therefore allowing unhindered production, how would that create “artificial scarcity”?
What’s true is that prohibition functioned as an informal price support system that kept prices artificially high based on risk.
Legalization provided for production of several times more weed than the legal market could handle but even before that production was steadily on the increase.
I’m still amazed by how much cannabis contributed to our local economy. The benefits were widespread, and as a retail clerk and grower, I witnessed firsthand how our community rallied around schools and organizations. We started in ’87 and got out in 2012, treating each year as if it could be our last. We never quit our day jobs and remain grateful for being part of this transformative industry. It’s hard to believe that Michael and Shanna Braught had anything to do with these two stores closing.
I’m pretty sure everyone understands the marihuana scene is what propped up rural humboldt for a few generations after the timber scene.
I remember the pro timber placards in all the yards around fortuna back in the late 90s.
Weed people didn’t seem to care about the timber downturn and that’s just the way it goes.
Everybody understands black market weed propped up the norcal rural scene in every way, yet it’s a little rough to have to live like other Americans, the people we made money off of
Yea it supported many families but at what cost and how much are your morals worth selling out? The bigger problem is that the board of supervisors have mismanaged the county for decades at least since the 1970’s when logging started its downhill turn. They would not allow other industries or even stores to come into the county. They did not want to lose power in their little Kingdome. Humboldt bay is the western most deep-water port on the west coast and halfway between SF and Portland. We had a running railroad, cheap land and a labor force that were looking for jobs since logging was dying. No the county problems have been going for close to 50 years now and yet the mismanagement continues. At this point we are past the point of no return. Perhaps a Mircle will happen but given the anti-business climate of CA and Humboldt I see the place collapsing to the point no one but retied folks and tweekers live here with just enough people to keep a couple of stores open. With amazon a lot of the local business just cannot make it. All the pot industry did was slow the eventual down fall and bring in an element of society that is all bad and they are here to stay.
Let’s look at just one impact of the marijuana industry that is almost never noticed–the solar industry. Growing needed remote areas. Remote areas meant no services. Growing however provided surplus income beyond basic needs which could be used to buy items like solar panels to provide power. The money which poured into the solar industry helped it reached a new level–a local company became an international one.
So, the marijuana industry did more than just slow the eventual fall of the area. It provided growth to other industries.
Yes I agree there were some positives about the marijuana industry. I never denied that.
It also gave growth to other industries that are not good:
Prison system
Meth dealing
Mental Health problems the list goes on
let’s not forget the environmental impact of all the fertilizer getting into the rivers and causing high algie growth.
How many people have been murdered as a direct result of the peace weed. In fact, one of my relatives is on the sheriff dept missing case lists.
How about all the water taken out of the streams that impact the rivers especially the eel?
People need to be honest with themselves about the true impact of the situation. Don’t get me wrong legalize it and i mean make it legal. Can you imagine the crops that would come out of the fields in Holmes flat alone? I’m not going to try it but hey you want to smoke your brains out go for it. Just like drinking and cigarettes don’t ask me to pay for your bad habits and addictions. want to get high go for it. I am at the point legalize it all meth fentanyl etc. just dont come around with your hand out when you are all strung out or overdose. Play stupid games win stupid prizes. Its about accountability.
Well almost any business could do all that wonderful stuff except that they have to pay 1) local, State and Federal income taxes, 2) pay property tax on business equipment 3)pay unemployment, worker’s comp, SDI and part of FICA on employees, 4) pay for ADA compliance, OSHA compliance, business licensing and enforcement 5) insurance lest some customer, government agency or employee sues them and 6) pay for all the paper work involved in the previous things. Heck, some of those people still donated generously while pot growers ridiculed ordinary working people and still are totally oblivious to the burdens of running a legal business with close margins.
You have created a golden age out of what was really youth, greed and dishonesty. What illegal pot growing did in terms of collateral damage was and still is immense from costs involved in its criminal side, to corruption of officials to creating a market place for gangs to leaving behind people who thought the good times would go on forever and now live on the taxes from those who missed that boat and complaining about it. That is was not totally evil did not make it a public good.
Um, the dishonesty was artificially created? Used to be anybody could grow. Thomas Jefferson did.
I totally agree that marijuana being illegal contributed to many problems and that making it legal was a way of sorting out one of the many tiny knots that society has tied itself into.
It wasn’t a “tiny knot.” There was the murder where the grower brought in two illegal workers, killed one of them when he objected to conditions and tried to kill the other. The only murder trial in which I was a juror was three pot growers who argued over profits and one of them was killed. How many times have you reported about young women missing from a pot grows where they were trimming? How many killings? Not every crime is related to pot but so many are. The Humboldt Triple Threat of illegal weapons, stolen car and illegal pot is in the news constantly. When does correlation become more than coincidence?
I feel like you want to be angry at me and look for ways to further that even when you have to misread me pretty badly.
I’m saying that marijuana being illegal is a tiny knot among a whole string of knots that society has wrong that have led to a lot of evil.
In no way was I trying to say that the crime associated with the large amount of money caused by marijuana being illegal was tiny.
You’re being too nice as always 🙂
Many many tangled webs haphazardly woven with many many tangled strings each with many many knots upon knots upon knots.
Sailors call them “rat’s nests”. 🙂
They struggled to gain traction because their prices were way off the charts. Something shady with this individual anyways…..he needs to move on to somewhere far from this community .
We don’t mind a little increase in groceries we pay less for in Ukiah or other areas, it’s worth it for the convenience
However, these prices, like Kongs, were over and above what one should charge if expecting to have a successful grocery business , for the community by the community. At least Geiger’s had fresh products, unlike the many outdated, shouldn’t have been sold, products the Kongs were known for.
There’s a profit to be made with affordable prices to be paid, but first you have to be doing it for the community, not for the extreme greed of ownership.
A lot of these places buy from Costco and Sam’s club and try to resale at a profit. These folks may have sunk too much into the business and not realized the economy behind the curtain was gone.
Just be look at what u can get a cabin for these days. 250k get u a cabin and land and well and the cars and belongings of the previous residents. I’ve seen crazy deals made in the last 6 months.
During the rush many of my neighbors were offered suitcases full of cash millions for their land; some sold out…
Gong was the family name not Kong
Groceries are expensive everywhere
You read the article?
It quotes former owner Tod Kong.
I bet he knows his name better than you do!
Have you factored in inflation? The cost of running a business is its overhead.
I’ve been running a business for 30 years, my cost to do business since covid has quadrupled. Who makes up this difference, the customers do.
That’s not greed on my part. I make 18% of my total gross before taxes. Technically my employees make more than I do a year if you factor in that I work 60 hour weeks on average.
Sign should say “Now Closed”. ?♂️
Geiger’ closed in Laytonville as a result of a poor transfer of ownership, blame & lack of clarity in the transfer. The Hopland store didn’t make much sense with Shopping in Ukiah at multiple locations without Boutique pricing. The Financial position of the Laytonville Grocery was absolutely impacted by declining resources of the Community. It remains to be seen what will occur, the Laytonville Market is reopening with past Employees rehired & Alan’s Meat counter the best in County. Folks , we are going to see massive changes here in Mendocino County as outside investment continues to reshape a distressed marketplace. The Corporate influence will affect quality of Life here with unskilled low paying Employment as a prevailing decline in quality of Life. Back to School & Trade Skills are your only way forward, hopefully you have been a Good Neighbor & others recognize your Family makes a contribution to Community.
I thought this thread was about the Hopland Market? I think their plan was like Mel Brooks in The Producers, You can make more money off a failed show or in this case renovated grocery store.