OVER 3,000 customers a week were picking up City Pulse in Kroger, but the Kroger Co. has banned free, independent publications — while keeping big corporate newspapers such as The Wall St. Journal and USA Today and even free publications owned by Gannett. This is the company that brags about being "America's Grocer" and how much it does for local communities, yet it is indifferent to customers who want free publications strong on local content. Please let Kroger know you value local news and the convenience of obtaining City Pulse where you shop. And if you are among the many Kroger customers who bus there, tell them it is very inconvenient for you to go elsewhere for City Pulse.

Kroger contends that readers are moving from print to digital and thus free newspapers no longer drive "customer engagement" — but that's not true of City Pulse. In Lansing, distribution at Kroger has tripled in the last eight years! And it grew dramatically after 2012, when Meijer discontinued highly visible free-publication racks in its lobbies and moved City Pulse to be with the paid newspapers. Distribution in Meijer plummeted — but rose dramatically at Kroger. City Pulse continues to invest in digital — but it values our readers who want a physical copy. Without the efficiency of distribution at Kroger, it will be much harder to serve those readers. This reduction poses a threat to the very existence of City Pulse because advertisers — almost entirely City Pulse's source of revenue — buy ads because of the audience they reach. Keep City Pulse strong: Tell Kroger to please reconsider. Don't lose local news!

Thank you.