Architects of San Diego’s new grocery coupon law tout its potential savings to seniors in Rancho Bernardo

Scores of people packed a Rancho Bernardo senior development and education center Wednesday to hear about a new San Diego law that expands access to grocery discounts and its implementation.

City Councilmembers Marni von Wilpert and Sean Elo-Rivera, who sponsored the law, held the townhall-style meeting at San Diego Oasis to discuss the ordinance with panelists from Serving Seniors, AARP and others.

Starting this fall, the law, which was passed and updated earlier this year, will require grocery stores that offer digital coupons to make the same discounts available to all customers.

“If a store is going to offer a digital discount, they must offer the same discount as an in-store alternative,” von Wilpert said. “So you don’t have to have a smartphone, you don’t have to use the internet to get the same coupon.”

The council members maintain that the technology required to access digital-only coupons disproportionately affects seniors who may not be as tech-savvy as other shoppers.

“It’s about a level playing field for all consumers,” panelist and AARP volunteer Robert Prath said. “We’re talking about a tech barrier becoming a food barrier. We deserve the same break.”

That barrier hit especially close to home for Elo-Rivera, who began the discussion by describing how his father had been frustrated by the digital coupons grocery stores required to access deals — a problem the council member first discounted but on closer inspection realized needed fixing.

“This wasn’t just a matter of my dad not knowing how to work his iPhone,” Elo-Rivera said. “This was a much broader issue.”

Once the initial ordinance passed, the grocery lobby said it would be too difficult to implement the paper coupon alternative the law required. That led the council to meet with grocers and pass updates to the ordinance in April.

“We instantly got calls from the grocery stores saying, ‘Council members, there’s thousands of coupons, and they change all the time,’” von Wilpert said. “And so we said, ‘Okay, I understand. Maybe it doesn’t have to be print, but there has to be an easy way to do it — and so that’s why we changed it from print requirement to in-store alternative.’”

That in-store requirement may take the form of a paper version of the coupons or a kiosk that ensures grocers offer all customers, not just seniors, access to the digital coupon savings. Stores also must post signs letting customers know they have a right to the digital coupons, and that other options are available.

“If a grocery store is found violating the law by having digital-only barriers, they have 15 days to reimburse the customer and change it — and if they don’t, then they can be sued by the district attorney or the city attorney, who’s empowered to enforce the law,” von Wilpert said.

The law applies only to grocers within the city of San Diego and not to convenience stores, Costco or other stores with premium membership programs. But von Wilpert plans to ask for support countywide.

While the ordinance is set to take effect on Oct. 15, some of the changes can already be seen in San Diego.

“The way Ralphs has done it is really super simple,” Elo-Rivera said. “You walk in the store, and there’s a table there, there’s coupon sheets, and you grab the coupon, you can see which items have digital deals, and you can hand that over to the cashier.”

Community members at the event inquired about the new law’s implementation; others asked broader questions about affordability in San Diego.

Most seemed to approve of the new law, but not all.

Afterwards, attendee Jackie Smith called the ordinance “insignificant” in the face of the rising costs of living in San Diego.

Elo-Rivera disagreed.

“I really do think that people are going to save hundreds of dollars over the course of the year because this rule’s in place,” he said. “When we think about what’s worth investing time and what’s not, to me having folks know what price they’re actually to pay at the checkout stand and putting dollars in people’s pockets is worth it.”