05/18/2026
There have been a lot of questions over the weekend and we want to be totally transparent with you, so here’s the deal:
An investigator visited the store in October and made the purchases, and we received notice of the violation from the USDA in early April. After reviewing the transactions, they did occur as reported and we take full responsibility for the mistake. It was a test that we failed and that’s on us.
We appealed the decision and requested a civil penalty, which included select letters of support that we thought were appropriate, but were denied due to lack of hardship to the community. We requested letters from various state entities but they declined due to their desire to stay neutral on the matter, and we respect that decision. The statutes are very clear about the penalties for these violations and although we don’t consider Safeway’s inventory to be comparable to ours, the USDA does.
This is a federal matter and the state has no involvement in SNAP compliance. The store can’t accept SNAP for 6 months (and accordingly can’t issue DUFB) and will have to reapply after that without guarantee that we get reauthorized - and with the assumption that this violation will count against us in the application process. Additionally, due to the Equal Treatment Rule, the store would be unable to provide any sort of benefit specifically to our SNAP customers even if there were funds available during the interim (and we’re going to do our best to avoid breaking more federal laws for now).
The bottom line is that we will need about $4,500 per month to cover the loss of revenue from SNAP and DUFB sales, which is a lot of money for a small business. The store is breaking even at best and can’t absorb any sustained month-over-month loss, let alone one of that size. The store will operate as normal through May 25, when our SNAP authorization expires. We do not have a timeline at the moment but if we are not seeing a significant increase in sales shortly after that, there is no future for Simpson’s Local Market.
