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Rancho Liborio to open today

Chicken-slaughtering facility on hold at Commerce City store

Janet Forgrieve, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 20, 2006 at midnight

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Rancho Liborio, a new grocery store that caters to Hispanic customers, will open quietly in Commerce City today.

The store is owned by California- based Liborio Markets and Denver developer Anthony Trujillo, who says the 43,000-square-foot store in the former King Soopers at 6040 E. 64th Ave. is the first of many slated for Colorado.

Today's "soft" opening will be followed by a grand opening celebration July 30, he said.

The company, which spent more than $10 million to renovate the store, has additional openings pending in Aurora, Greeley, Colorado Springs, Thornton and Westminster. It also has made offers on some of the 13 soon-to-be-vacant Albertsons stores in this market, Trujillo said Wednesday.

One part of the store won't be up and running today, though. A controversial chicken-slaughtering facility, or polleria, will have to wait while city officials determine whether to grant a needed zoning change, City Manager Perry Vandeventer said.

That decision, which will be made carefully and with input from local and possibly federal health officials, likely won't come until at least October, he said.

A similar facility likely won't be included at the Greeley store, said that city's economic development director, Becky Safarik.

"The staff's position is that the chicken-slaughter business is not compatible with the zoning, and it would not support a change of allowed uses on this site," she said.

Liborio, which began in 1966 as a 1,200-square-foot Los Angeles store, today has five locations in California and one in Las Vegas.

Some of the stores have pollerias, Trujillo said, including Las Vegas', which just received city approval.

City denials won't affect the company's decision to open a store, he said, adding that the company believes residents just need to be educated on how a polleria works.

About 150 live birds would be trucked in daily, he said. They would go in through a separate entrance to be zapped, plucked and eviscerated - customers wouldn't see them until they land on the shelf.

"The whole store concept is to market fresh - the freshest produce and largest selection of meat, poultry and seafood."

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