A5
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, MAY 1, 2021
q
DOW
33,874.85 -185.51
q
bendbulletin.com/business
NASDAQ
13,962.68 -119.86
q
S&P 500
4,181.17 -30.30
q
q
30-YR T-BOND
2.30% -.01
CRUDE OIL
$63.58 -1.43
q
GOLD
$1,767.30 -.80
q
SILVER
$25.85 -.20
BRIEFING
New Belgium Brewing
highlights climate
change with starchy
Torched Earth Ale
Mo’s
75
European Union reg-
ulators accused Apple
on Friday of violating the
bloc’s antitrust laws, alleg-
ing the iPhone maker dis-
torts competition for mu-
sic streaming by imposing
unfair rules for rival ser-
vices in its App Store.
The EU’s executive
commission said it ob-
jected to Apple’s rules for
music streaming services
that compete with its Ap-
ple Music service, saying
they end up costing con-
sumers more and limiting
their choices.
The charges under-
score the long-running
feud over app payments
between Apple and pop-
ular music streaming ser-
vice Spotify, which filed
a complaint that sparked
the investigation — one
of four the company is
facing from the EU.
Apple rejected the
charges, saying it was
proud of its role in helping
Spotify grow into a mu-
sic streaming giant. The
company also pointed out
Spotify doesn’t pay Apple
a commission for 99% of
its paid subscribers.
Road trip across the Northwest
kept Mo’s Seafood and Chowder
in business during the pandemic
BY LORI TOBIAS • The Oregonian
D
Incomes surge
as relief rolls out
— Bulletin wire reports
BY KERRIN JEROMIN
Special To The Washington Post
makes it to
EU accuses Apple
of antitrust breach
U.S. consumer spend-
ing rose at the fastest
pace in nine months
while incomes soared by
a record amount in March,
reflecting billions of dol-
lars in government sup-
port payments aimed at
putting the country firmly
on the road to recovery.
Consumer spending
rose 4.2% last month,
the Commerce Depart-
ment said Friday, the best
showing since a 6.5%
spending increase in June.
Spending had fallen 1% in
February as frigid winter
weather disrupted sales.
Incomes surged by a
record-breaking 21.1% in
March after having fallen
7% in February. The big
gain reflected delivery of
billions of dollars in relief
payments with individu-
als getting up to $1,400
payments from the $1.9
trillion support pack-
age President Joe Biden
pushed through Congress
last month.
The strong gains offer
yet more evidence that
the economy is poised for
a rapid recovery following
last year’s pandemic-trig-
gered recession.
EURO
$1.2022 -.0104
Bad
beer is
brewed
for good
cause
Warrenton to curb
vacation rentals
The Warrenton City
Commission is ex-
pected to approve code
changes that will restrict
single-family homes in
residential areas from be-
ing turned into vacation
rentals.
The changes would
allow nonowner-occu-
pied vacation rentals in
commercial zones in the
coastal community, but
not in residential zones.
Homestay lodging would
be permitted in residen-
tial zones as long as the
owner or representative
lives on the property and
is available 24/7.
The goal is to prevent
vacation rentals from eat-
ing up limited housing
stock.
A Clatsop County hous-
ing study in 2019 found
that vacation rentals and
second homes are taking
up a substantial share of
the housing stock and
driving up rental and
home prices. Nearly a
third of homes in the
county were vacant, ac-
cording to the study, and
construction of second
homes is outpacing those
for long-term residents.
q
PHOTOS, from top:
Inside the original Mo’s Seafood and Chowder in
Newport, celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2021.
The original location of Mo’s is still in business in New-
port’s historic bayfront on the Central Oregon Coast.
The simple cup of clam chowder is key to the history of
the restaurant. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
ylan McEntee had been on the road for nearly 10
hours, pulling a trailer loaded with Mo’s chow-
der and cobbler en route to Utah where custom-
ers awaited their orders. Taking a rest stop with
his family near Eureka, Nevada, McEntee heard
a knock on the window, and turned to see the sheriff. It
didn’t look good.
“He asked me, ’’Do you have chowder in that trailer?’”
said Dylan, whose great-grandmother Mo Niemi founded
Mo’s Seafood and Chowder. “I said, ‘I do.’ He said, ‘Oh, my
wife would kill me if I didn’t buy some.’”
It was one of the many memorable moments from a
spring of road trips forced by COVID-19, a Hail Mary
move designed to save the family business that began
in Newport in 1946. What should have been a year of
preparation for Mo’s 75th anniversary celebration, be-
came instead a year of worry, doubt and the very real
possibility that Mo’s wouldn’t see that milestone.
“In March 2020, we had to lay off almost every single
person,” said Gabrielle McEntee, Mo’s great-granddaugh-
ter. “This was probably the most heart-breaking day of
my life as a restaurant owner.”
It was think quick or turn off the lights.
“We decided to take some of our homemade products
on the road,” Gabrielle McEntee said. “We went to towns
where we had friends and family that could help us get their
friends and family to buy what we called Beach Bundles.”
The bundles included chowder base, Rogue root beer,
Mo’s label Oregon Coast tuna, garlic cheese butter, home-
made bread and mini marionberry cobblers.
“The cool thing about Beach Bundles is we always do-
nated something to that town … to a food share or food
bank,” Gabrielle said. “From March until the end of June,
we traveled all over Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Utah.
The sales literally saved the business.”
Not just the business, but an Oregon legacy.
If you’ve spent any time in Oregon, you probably know
the history of the original Mo’s. It begins in the 1940s,
when Mo (short for Mohava) Niemi opened a small
diner on Newport’s Bayfront.
See Mo’s / A6
There’s nothing quite like a
cold beer to finish a long work-
week. Unless, of course, that
beer reminds you of the threats
of climate change, whether suf-
focating heat waves, explosive
wildfires, mega-droughts, dev-
astating floods or their risks to
human health and the environ-
ment.
That’s actually the goal of
Torched Earth Ale, a new beer
from New Belgium Brewing
Co., based in Fort Collins, Col-
orado. With each sip, you’ll get
a not-so-subtle reminder that
your favorite brew may no lon-
ger taste the same if we don’t
take immediate action to slow
climate change and adapt to its
effects.
See New Belgium / A6
Prominent
Pendleton
building to
be sold via
auction
BY ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
One of Pendleton’s most
prominent buildings is on the
market, and it can be bought
for as little as $2 million.
On behalf of Pendleton
Grain Growers, Realty Market-
ing/Northwest is auctioning off
PGG’s mostly vacant Pendleton
facility for the reserve price of
$1.995 million, a slight reduc-
tion from the company’s $2.1
million asking price.
The 3-acre property in-
cludes a 42,000-square-foot
building that once housed the
grain co-op’s headquarters,
retail showroom, automotive
service center and warehouse.
Once a thriving organization
with agricultural and retail
operations across Eastern
Oregon, the Pendleton facil-
ity has sat mostly vacant for
about a half-decade after it
decided to shutter retail op-
erations in 2014 and voted to
completely dissolve the co-op
in 2016.
See Pendleton / A6
COVID-19, sandwich craze leave U.S. short on chicken
BY REIS THEBAULT
The Washington Post
It’s not like we weren’t
warned.
The doomsayers predicted a
chicken wing shortage months
ago. But it turned out to be so
much worse. It’s not just wings,
but chicken in general.
It seems the poultry pau-
city has arrived, heralded by
a series of fast-food execu-
tives describing in earnings
calls their stores’ struggles to
stock enough chicken — nug-
gets, tenders, wings, patties,
all shapes and sizes — to keep
pace with legions of peckish
Americans.
“Demand for the new sand-
wich has been so strong that,
coupled with general tighten-
ing in domestic chicken supply,
our main challenge has been
keeping up with that demand,”
said David Gibbs, CEO of Yum
Brands, whose KFC restau-
rants recently rolled out a new
fried-chicken sandwich.
Chicken has for years been
the most popular meat in the
United States, and experts and
analysts have cited several rea-
sons for the current deficit.
Some are related to the coro-
navirus — pandemic-spurred
disruptions in the market and
supply chain and an increased
demand for a comfort food
that is takeout — or deliv-
ery-friendly. Others, indus-
try watchers say, include in-
creased competition, volatile
feed prices and even the deadly
winter storms that swept over
the South in February, halting
the work of chicken processors.
And then there’s the prolifer-
ation of the fried chicken sand-
wich. The Washington Post
dubbed 2019 the Year of the
Chicken Sandwich — and for
good reason. Popeyes kicked
things off that August, releas-
ing a new chicken sandwich
that quickly took over the in-
ternet. Then it hit the streets,
with eager customers queuing
up for blocks to buy a sand-
wich. Just over two weeks after
the new menu item dropped,
Popeyes announced it had sold
out.
Even now, the craze persists,
with Popeyes continuing to
duke it out with Chick-fil-A for
sandwich supremacy and KFC
and McDonald’s entering the
fray with new offerings.
See xx / A6