Permit Auntie Pam's Country Store to sell Trader Joe's foods!
Until recently, Auntie Pam's Country Store offered a personal shopping service providing products from Trader Joe's in Bellingham, WA to a client list of over a dozen people who are house-bound or restricted to Point Roberts because of border issues. Last fall, we received a cease and desist notice by Fedex ordering us to quit selling Trader Joe's products. We contacted their lawyers and pleaded our case, hoping to clarify our situation and to outline some kind of parameters to continue this service. They wouldn't budge, going so far as to state we could not even buy products for family members if we received repayment! Unable to afford the legal fees needed to fight this, we have been forced to discontinue this service.
We all miss Trader Joe's food being available here in Point Roberts. We are a unique community of 1500 people living on a US peninsula attached to Vancouver, BC. Getting to the mainland of Washington requires crossing two international borders and traveling over a 100 miles round-trip, a journey not possible for many in our community. They were purchased at full retail price and provided with a very small mark-up to compensate for gas and time, since this was considered more a community service more than a commercial enterprise. As the products were limited and purchased for specific clients, pull-dates were never an issue. Our customers love Trader Joe's coffees, chips and boxed candy, and miss having any opportunity to buy them. Therefore, we are petitioning Trader Joe's to alllow Auntie Pam's Country Store to renew our personal shopping service so that we may once again provide their fine prodcuts to the people of Point Roberts.
We all miss Trader Joe's food being available at our little country store. We are a unique community of 1500 people living on a US peninsula attached to Vancouver, BC! To get to the mainaldn of Washington, we have to go through two international borders. We go through one here in Point Roberts, to enter Tsawwassen BC, Canada and then travel 25 miles and enter another border at Blaine to enter Washington. The Trader Joe's store in Bellingham Washington is a one hundred mile round trip! A very small section of my store is devoted to high quality food. My customers love the Trader Joe's coffees, chips and boxed candy. I mark it up only slightly to offset my costs. This is actually a community service. I am diligent about dates and quality so I keep the section down to 1/6th of my store. Please let me purchase products at retail so I can provide them for my customers, family and friends.
