Meijer ontknoping

Meijer shoppers who are used to picking up City Pulse there will still find it — they will just have to look in a new place starting next week.

That’s when City Pulse will start being available on the paid newspaper racks — even though it is free.

This results from semi-negotiations with Meijer. Really, more like, “Here’s your choice” — although put to us in a very nice way. 

Six weeks ago, Meijer was set to disenfranchise City Pulse — a word I’m using because I know it drives conservatives nuts. (After what Rush Limbaugh said last week, I really don’t think they should lecture us on words.) Meijer had every right to toss us out — still does. Meijer customers had every right to complain. They did, and fortunately in enough numbers that Meijer listened. That plus some behind-the-scenes help netted the middle ground of keeping City Pulse, albeit in a new location on the paid racks.

Will it work for our readers? We hope so. The paper’s location will not be as obvious, given that in the eight stores in the Lansing area it’s been on red racks by the exits. As of March 14, its new home will be on a shelf by the checkout lanes on the grocery side. In six of the eight stores, it trades two locations for just one. (In the other two stores, we’ve just been at one exit.)

Still, it’s going to be amid magazines and on the same shelf with the Lansing State Journal, USA Today and the Detroit papers. If you shop for reading material at Meijer, you should see us. Who knows? Maybe more people than ever will pick us up at Meijer.

We will have less space, so please be patient with us as we adjust delivery to your needs. We’ll do our best to make sure you can find your copy at Meijer, even if it means returning daily.

We’ll let you know in a month or so how it’s going.

Thanks again to all our readers and public officials who took up the cause and to the media outlets that reported on it. Thanks to Meijer for being reasonable and helpful.

And to the rest of you who don’t pick up City Pulse at Meijer, thanks for your patience while we sorted this out.

‘City Pulse Newsmakers’

City Pulse’ venture into TV land continues on schedule. We’ll launch our show with Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero as our first guest. Look for it at 11 a.m. Sunday, March 25, on Lansing’s public access channel.