BUSINESS
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2015
Columbia Fruit and Produce clears its shelves
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
TIMELINE
After 67 years of providing fresh
fruits and vegetables to wholesale
customers and 53 years of running a
market, Columbia Fruit and Produce
closed its doors this week.
The announcement was made
April 22 on the store’s Facebook
page and through an ad in The Daily
Astorian. The company, owned by
Bruce and Cece Johnson, has been
telling customers since March.
“Nobody wants to do it, and it’s
time for my husband to cut back and
think about retiring,” Cece said.
She said Columbia Produce start-
ed the merger process Wednesday
with Portland-based United Salad
Co./Duck Delivery Produce Inc. The
last day of the market was sched-
uled for today, with produce marked
down to 67 cents a pound to honor
the company’s history.
The Johnsons will be working
with their former customers as em-
ployees of Duck Delivery, handling
wholesale orders in the Astoria area.
Cece said the market was about 1
percent of business for Columbia
Produce, which mainly supplied
between 100 and 200 restaurants,
schools, care facilities, stores and
other commercial customers.
Cece said they had tried to work
with others to take over the business,
but nothing ever worked out, and
1948: Wholesale division
begins
Opens first retail market locat-
ed on Port of Astoria’s central
waterfront
1962: Opens current mar-
ket, located on 598 Bond St.,
Astoria
April 2015: Closes after 67
years in business
they had no family to take over the
business. She described the store,
which took cash and checks and al-
lowed customers to get their produce
on a tab, as operating in the 19th cen-
tury.
“We don’t have another genera-
tion that wants to take it over,” she
said. “We just felt this was best for the
majority of our customers and us.”
Cece said Arnold Johnson Sr. start-
ed Columbia Produce — the whole-
sale division, not the market — out of
a semi truck in 1948, making trips to
Portland to pick up produce for com-
mercial customers in Astoria. His son,
Arnold Johnson Jr., ran the business
before Bruce and Cece Johnson.
“That got to be pretty popular,”
Cece said of the original operation,
adding that Arnold Johnson Sr. later
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location on the central waterfront
EDWARD STRATTON — The Daily Astorian
After 67 years of providing wholesale produce and 53 of providing a market, Columbia Fruit and Produce
closed its doors this week.
of the Port of Astoria. In 1962, she
added, Columbia Produce bought its
current location, a former Blitz-Wein-
hard Brewing Co. distributor.
“Please continue to support your
small locally owned businesses,”
Columbia Produce’s Facebook post
about the closure read, listing sever-
al other locally owned grocery stores
as alternatives. “Without your sup-
port they won’t be there for you in
the future.”
Maritime Museum store wins national award
Submitted photo
The Columbia River Maritime Museum, which recently
won the Museum Store Association’s Visual Merchan-
dising award, submitted its special exhibits conceived
for “Envisioning the World: The First Printed Maps,
1472-1700.”
The
Columbia
Riv-
er Maritime Museum has
been awarded the 2015 Muse-
um Store Association Visual
Merchandising award, which
recognizes excellence in visu-
al merchandising by a muse-
um institution.
Nominations were evalu-
ated based on creative use of
resources, collaboration and
how well the display extends
the museum experience. The
Columbia River Maritime
Museum submitted its special
exhibits store that was con-
ceived for the exhibit “Envi-
sioning the World: The First
Printed Maps, 1472-1700.”
Finalists for the award
were the DeYoung Fine Arts
Museum of San Francisco,
The Wadsworth Atheneum of
Hartford Conn., Virginia Mu-
seum of Fine Art and Eastern
National.
The award was accepted
by Blue Anderson April 19 in
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day of the association’s na-
tional conference.
The Museum Store Asso-
FLDWLRQLVDQRQSUR¿WLQWHUQD-
tional association dedicated
to advancing the success of
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in extending the brand and
contributing to the bottom
lines of their institutions. It
serves more than 1,500 mem-
bers in the U.S., Canada,
Mexico, Asia and Europe.
More job vacancies, higher wages in Oregon
Oregon businesses report-
ed 39,400 vacancies in winter
2015, an increase of 6,600
vacancies from the prior year,
according to the quarterly
Job Vacancy Report released
Tuesday by the Oregon Em-
ployment Department. That
included 3,577 job vacancies
in northwest Oregon.
The growing number of va-
FDQFLHV UHÀHFWV WKH VWUHQJWK-
ening labor market across Or-
egon in the past year.
The average hourly wage
offered for job vacancies in
winter 2015 was the highest
in the two-year history of the
quarterly Oregon Job Vacancy
Survey. The overall average
wage was $17.53, up about
$1.50 from the average of
$16.05 in winter 2014.
Employers report fewer
low-wage job vacancies and
more high-wage vacancies.
This combination is raising
the average offered wage.
A year ago, 61 percent of
the job vacancies offered a
starting wage below $15 per
hour. That share is now down
to just 34 percent. A year ago,
4,200 job vacancies offered at
least $25 per hour. Now, more
than 5,000 job vacancies offer
at least $25 per hour.
Health care and social as-
sistance had the largest num-
ber of job vacancies by far,
reporting almost one-quarter
of the total openings. Occu-
pations in demand included
personal care aides, social and
human service assistants and
registered nurses. Leisure and
hospitality employers also re-
ported many job vacancies,
with recruitment for maids
and housekeepers; waiters
and waitresses; and cooks.
The Oregon Job Vacan-
cy Survey has improved
geographic detail, as of this
quarter. From this point for-
ward, it will be publishing
vacancy data for nine areas
around the state, aligning
with Oregon’s redesigned
Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act local areas.
This is the first quarter it’s
gathered data for these new
substate geographies.
In winter 2015, the num-
ber of vacancies in each of
the nine geographic areas
was roughly consistent with
the spread of overall employ-
ment across the state. The
biggest differences were in
northwest Oregon, which had
9 percent of the vacancies,
compared with 5 percent of
the state’s employment, and
in the mid-Willamette Valley,
which had 7 percent of the
vacancies, compared with 13
percent of the overall employ-
ment in Oregon.
About the Survey
The Oregon Employment
Department’s Job Vacancy
Survey started in May 2008
and became quarterly in
2013. This survey serves as
a current indicator of hiring
demand and focuses specif-
ically on characteristics of
CMH Medical Group adds caregivers
WARRENTON — Columbia Memorial Hos-
pital Medical Group recently doubled its primary
care services with the addition of Dr. Kevin Bax-
ter and Family Nurse Practitioner Janice Monroe.
Baxter and Monroe joined the CMH Prima-
ry Care Clinic in Warrenton April 20 and con-
tinue to see Baxter Family Medicine patients in
their new location.
“I am very excited to be merging my prac-
tice with the CMH Primary Care Clinic,” Baxter
said. “My philosophy of patient-centered care
matches that of the Planetree philosophy that
CMH has embraced.”
Baxter and Monroe will collaborate with
CMH Primary Care Clinic’s other providers, Dr.
Brian Cox and Nurse Practitioner Mary Rizzo.
CMH Primary Care Clinic is located in War-
renton at 1639 S.E. Ensign Lane, Suite B103.
For more information or to schedule an appoint-
ment, call 503-338-4500.
vacancies for anyone seek-
ing a job in Oregon. In ad-
dition to developing the es-
timate of total vacancies in
the state, the survey provides
insights on the industries
hiring, wages offered and
education required. In recent
years, the survey has also
asked businesses whether
their vacancies are difficult
to fill.
The employment depart-
ment publishes a quarterly
summary of vacancy survey
results, as well as annual, more
detailed reports on wages, ed-
ucation requirements and the
reasons why businesses have
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Survey results are based on
responses from private-sector
businesses with at least two
employees. Estimates for
spring 2015 will be released
in July.
For more details on re-
cent Oregon job vacancies,
visit the “publications” tab
on QualityInfo.org and scroll
down to the “Job Vacancy
Survey” section.
AP Photo/Gene Puskar, File
Aluminum bottles of Bud Light beer are on display at Al-
coa headquarters in Pittsburgh. Anheuser-Busch apol-
ogized Tuesday, for a slogan that appeared on bottles
saying Bud Light removes the word ‘no’ from drinkers’
vocabulary.
Bud Light: Sorry for the ‘no’
NEW YORK (AP) — Bud
Light should have kept the
word “No” handy in this case.
Anheuser-Busch is apolo-
gizing for ad copy that appeared
on bottles saying Bud Light re-
moves the word ‘no’ from drink-
ers’ vocabulary.
Photos of the bottles went
viral on social media Tuesday
with widespread complaints
about the slogan, particularly at
a time of national debate about
college rape.
“The perfect beer for re-
moving ‘no’ from your vocab-
ulary for the night,” the copy
read in full.
The response on social me-
dia ranged from crude jokes to
criticism that the slogan is part
of a culture that tacitly con-
dones sexual assault.
The slogan is part of the
brewer’s two-year-old “Up
for Whatever” campaign that
includes a wide array of mar-
keting, such as a Super Bowl
commercial that showed a Bud
Light drinker going through a
live-action Pac Man game.
The company says there are
waves of the bottle-message
campaign included more than
140 different messages — with
new ones out every few months
— intended to “encourage brand
engagement.” They said this
particular one missed the mark,
and the company regrets it.
“We would never condone
disrespectful or irresponsible
behavior,” Alexander Lam-
brecht, vice president, Bud
Light said in a statement. “As
a result, we have immediately
ceased production of this mes-
sage on all bottles.”
Marketers can sometimes
lose perspective when they
walk the line between being
edgy to get attention and be-
ing offensive, said marketing
expert Allen Adamson, man-
DJLQJGLUHFWRURIEUDQGLQJ¿UP
Landor Associates.
“All marketers want to get
people’s attention, not alienate
them,” Adamson said. “The
challenge is to understand who
you’re talking to, but not lose
sight of the bigger picture and
be potentially polarizing and
offensive.”
Some other messages on
bottles include: “The perfect
beer for dropping everything
and going to Paris, even if it’s
the one in Texas;” and “The
perfect beer for being that guy
people know when they say
they ‘know a guy.”’
PR O PER TY LIN ES
a t ho m ed it e
io n
REAL ESTATE, HOME CONSTRUCTION, GARDENING AND MORE!
june
2015
• Pocket Listings
• Real Estate Roadblocks
• Buying a Fixer-Upper
Clatsop County
Property Transactions
Seller: John Francis Davis
Buyer: Susan Lee Gus-
tavson
Address: 247 E. Dawes
Ave., Cannon Beach
Price: $385,000
Sellers: Lee Ray Townsley
and Barbara L. Townsley
Buyers: Steven E. Craft
and Vicci L. Craft
Address: 1940 S. Down-
ing St., Seaside
Price: $337,000
Seller: Shawn Michael
Teevin
Buyer: Gary W. Hart
Address: 2835 Mill Pond
Lane, Astoria
Price: $325,000
Seller: Janice Gloria Rob-
ertson
Buyers: John C. Bredeson
and Novella L. Bredeson
Address: 439 McClure
Ave., Astoria
Price: $285,000
• Real Estate Glossary
Seller: A&G Builders,
LLC
Buyer: Mays Land &
Livestock, Inc.
Address: 151 S.W. Kal-
mia Ave., Warrenton
Price: $264,000
• Trim your Trees Safely
Seller: Rebecca Lynn
Dean
Buyers: Ashton Lee
Jenks and Alison LaRee
Jenks
Address: 1856 Pine Ridge
Road, Gearhart
Price: $255,000
• Trends in Home Construction
• Adding a Shed
• Painting your Subfloor
• When should you Finance?
• Buying a vacation home
Copies of Property Lines “At Home” edition are inserted into
The Daily Astorian and are available at locations throughout Clatsop County.
For more information or to reserve your space, contact your advertising consultant:
Astoria/Warrenton/Hammond 503-325-3211 Gearhart/Seaside/Cannon Beach 503-738-5561
Dea d lin e: M a y 8 , 2015 Pu b lis hes : M a y 22, 2015
Available online for one full year @
dailyastorian.com chinookobserver.com seasidesignal.com cannonbeachgazette.com
