Well, that was quick.
Right on the heels of San Diego becoming the first jurisdiction in the country to pass an ordinance regulating how digital-only deals are offered, a second major U.S. city has attempted to join in with a nearly-identical effort of its own. But amid pushback from several skeptical lawmakers, the attempt failed.
El Paso city council member Josh Acevedo yesterday proposed an ordinance that “would require retail grocery stores to offer fair access to discount pricing to all consumers, regardless of their access to or familiarity with digital technology.” The measure would have required any grocery store in the city that “offers digital coupons and/or discounts via the Internet, text message, or a mobile/smartphone application, to make traditional, physical coupons with identical pricing available to consumers.”
“This is an issue in our community and in communities across the country,” Acevedo said. So he asked the City Manager and City Attorney to draft a measure he’s calling the Grocery Price Fairness Ordinance for the council to consider within the next four months.
“My office has spoken to community members who maintain that a digital divide negatively impacts a significant portion of El Paso residents with regard to food discounts and access to healthy food options,” Acevedo explained. “Economically disadvantaged, elderly, and other El Paso residents lack access to the internet and smartphone devices, putting them at a disadvantage when retail grocery stores offer digital-only coupons and discounts. This ordinance would correct that divide by requiring equal access to discounts that are accessible to all residents.”
But several of Acevedo’s fellow council members pushed back on his proposed solution to the problem. “I’m not even sure this is legal,” Art Fierro said. “This sounds to me like an unfunded mandate. Is the city going to pay for the coupons that these grocery stores have to print, and hire somebody to come in and be a graphic designer, send it to the printer, bring it back and then change it weekly?”
Council member Deanna Maldonado-Rocha pointed out that “there’s a misconception that the grocer owns all the coupons. And that’s not the case… Those digital coupons are not provided by the grocery store. They are provided by the manufacturer.” Greater access to digital discounts “is a step to (addressing) the digital divide,” she said. “It is not the answer.”
A motion to advance the measure ultimately failed, by a 5-3 vote.
The phrasing, the goal, the timeline and the potential unintended consequences of this proposal were starkly similar to what has played out in San Diego in recent months. There, too, council members announced their intention to have an ordinance drafted that would require “any grocery store that offers digital discounts” to “make physical coupons for the digital price available to consumers upon request.” Once the ordinance was drafted four months later, it sailed through a committee hearing, and earned preliminary and final approval in unanimous votes, the most recent one just yesterday.
Retailers and promotions providers have publicly and privately tried to explain to San Diego lawmakers the potential consequences of what they see as an overly-broad ordinance, which goes far beyond some proponents’ desire to simply make advertised digital deal prices available to all. Mandating that all forms of digital deals – including digital manufacturer’s coupons – be available in paper form and applicable to anyone who asks, would require resources that retailers don’t have, would bust manufacturers’ promotional budgets, and could cause retailers to quit offering digital coupons in the city altogether.
Before granting their ordinance final approval yesterday, San Diego council members were amenable to making changes during the 90-day period before the measure would take effect. While critics of the ordinance as written won’t rest until they see those changes, many are breathing a little easier knowing that their input and warnings about unintended consequences are being taken into consideration.
And now El Paso just opened that very same debate all over again, from the ground up.
In proposing his own ordinance, Acevedo tried pitching it as being a win-win for consumers and retailers. Citing recent surveys showing that shoppers tend to buy more than they anticipated when they use coupons, he reasoned that the more coupons that are available to more shoppers, the more the retailers will be able to sell.
His main goal, though, is to address the “digital divide” that he says leaves the digitally-disconnected unable to access many of the deals that digitally-savvy shoppers can. “El Pasoans, especially children and seniors, are disproportionately affected by the rising costs of goods, and lack of internet access/digital literacy,” he stated. “Digital coupons are a popular form of discounts offered by retailers that leave out people without internet access or limited digital literacy.”
He singled out East Coast retailers like Stop & Shop and Food Lion that offer in-store digital coupon kiosks, and other retailers like Texas’ own H-E-B which, while it does not have stores in El Paso, is known in the state for offering physical coupons alongside digital coupons. He held up both as potential solutions to the digital divide, that stores in El Paso itself have yet to implement.
For now, though, the issue will not be addressed by legislation in the city of El Paso. But that doesn’t mean the case is closed. Over the past couple of years, seven states have proposed similar legislation on the statewide level. None has passed. San Diego may now have started a new trend, of addressing the issue on the local level, where it takes far less time and far fewer lawmakers to turn an idea into an ordinance.
Those who feel left out by their inability to access digital deals may cheer local efforts to address the digital divide. But opponents who warn that legislation like this goes too far, are likely to have their hands full in the weeks and months to come. Because while El Paso is the first city to attempt to follow in San Diego’s footsteps – it seems increasingly unlikely that it will be the last.
Image sources: Josh Acevedo
