The lobster gauge

By Mike Trask

Friday, Sept. 5, 2008 | 2 a.m.

There are a couple of ways to determine the wealth of a neighborhood.

One is to research its median income.

The other is to pop into an Albertsons grocery store and see if it has a tank of live lobsters.

One is more fun than the other.

The Albertsons supermarket at Town Center Drive and Charleston Boulevard in Summerlin has a live lobster tank. It’s also in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the region, an area with a median family income of $91,762, according to the 2008 Las Vegas Perspective, a statistical report published by the Nevada Development Authority.

(That Albertsons also has an organic dairy products cooler near the in-store Starbucks, which is surrounded by a magazine rack with glossy titles such as “Los Angeles Weddings.”)

The Albertsons about 4 miles east at Charleston and Rainbow Boulevard, where median income is $57,630, also stocks fresh lobsters.

The median income near Flamingo Road and Interstate 215 is $50,079. The Albertsons in that neighborhood is a lobster store, too.

The Albertsons at Warm Springs and Eastern Avenue, a neighborhood with a median income of $40,347, is not a lobster store.

The median income near Green Valley Parkway and Sunset Road is $49,999. And the Albertsons there does not sell live lobsters.

It looks like the lobster cutoff line is $50,000.

“I know they have them at the store in Anthem,” the seafood worker in the Green Valley store said.

Indeed they do. The store is in a neighborhood with median family income of $71,524.

Supermarket and retail experts says stores look at the demographics and income levels of the surrounding areas, as well as the proximity of competing stores, when deciding what to stock on the shelves. Thus the realities of a neighborhood and what the people there buy are closely reflected in what’s available for purchase on the local market’s shelves.

“Each store caters to slightly different demographics,” says David Livingston, the oft-quoted owner of DJL Research, a Wisconsin-based supermarket research firm. “It’s capitalism. They know what to put in.”

They know from a combination of statistical research centered on income levels, the ethnic makeup of an area, local traditions and sales records.

Then store managers keep close track of what’s moving off the shelves and what consumers request. They also track what nearby stores carry. All of this is geared at giving the local customers what they want and need.

“The store is going to look at the target audience and what they can afford,” says Richard Lapidus, an UNLV marketing professor.

So some stores have customers who don’t flinch at the price of a live lobster ($14.99 a pound lately), while other stores have seen too much flinching.

The Albertsons at Maryland Parkway and Sahara Avenue, in an area with a median income of $36,793, does not carry live lobsters.

It used to. The seafood counter attendant remarked: “They took the tanks out because more people were stealing them than buying them.”