Shoppers looking for groceries at Rancho Market in Salt Lake City Monday found its North Temple parking lot vacant and the doors closed.
Several Utah businesses — including all nine Rancho Markets — closed their doors Monday, part of national protest called “Day Without Immigrants.” Some schools felt the effects of absent workers and students.
Shoppers looking for groceries at Rancho Market in Salt Lake City Monday found its North Temple parking lot vacant and the doors closed.
People hoping for coffee from at least two Latino-owned coffee shops — Un Cafecito on North Temple and Luna Coffee and Crystals in the city’s Ballpark neighborhood — also went away empty-handed.
As part of a national “Day Without Immigrants” protest, these businesses and others stayed shut and posted on social media accounts that they were joining the protest for the day.
At Rancho Market, would-be customers found a flier, taped to the inside of the door, declaring that all nine of the chain’s markets in Utah, from Ogden to Provo, were closed Monday.
“Rancho Markets join this movement in support of our entire Latin community,” the flier read, in English and Spanish. “No school — no escuela. No spending — no comprar. No work — no trabajar.”
Luna Coffee had opened late last month, owner Veronica Aldama told The Salt Lake Tribune.
“We really want to bring awareness to the importance of a diverse community and how much we contribute to this amazing country,” she said.
Aldama, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico, said she worked for the last 10 years for “a corporation who profited from my community and never showed any support, and that didn’t fit with my values. Now that I have my own voice, I wanted to make it count.”
Cynthia Lemus, owner of Un Cafecito, said the response from her customers has been “overwhelmingly positive.” Many, she said, have shared the shop’s Instagram post announcing the one-day closure.
Lemus, whose parents are immigrants — her father is from Mexico, her mother is from Peru — said her shop was taking part in the protest “because we want to stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors, brothers and sisters, who are fighting for their voices to be heard.”
A message on Rancho Markets’ website said the chain was supporting the protest “due to the current federal political treatment of hard-working and law-abiding immigrants, who are being unfairly treated.”
News reports are showing businesses closed in California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma and the Washington, D.C., area as part of the protest.
This is a developing story.