For Lisa Vigneault, Giorgio's No Frills is a staple.

It's so close to her east Hamilton home, she can walk. That's good because she doesn't drive.

"This is my store."

But come April 9, it will be more difficult to buy groceries.

That's when the store, located at the Delta on Main East and Balmoral, closes "due to underperformance," a Loblaw Companies Limited spokesperson said Thursday.

Instead, Loblaw plans to "concentrate" its resources on "other stores in Hamilton," Tammy Smitham said in an email to The Spectator.

About 90 people work at the 18,000-square-foot store.

Those employees won't be transferred, but their resumés will be circulated to other No Frills owners in Hamilton, if they wish, Smitham said.

Independent franchise owners operate the stores. Loblaw has no plans for the Delta property, which it owns.

When Giorgio's closes, the closest major stores will be Metro — about 1.5 kilometres from the Delta at Barton East and Ottawa — and FreshCo — about 1.8 kilometres afield at Barton East and Gage.

Does that turn the residential areas around Gage Park a "food desert"?

The term has been used to describe parts of Hamilton where access to grocery stores is poor.

Downtown was labelled as such until Nations opened in Jackson Square, for example.

Food deserts are socio-economically disadvantaged areas where people don't have easy access to healthy and affordable food, says Jason Gilliland, a Western University urban geographer.

The threshold for accessibility can range from 500 to 2,000 metres, but the most frequently cited distance in scholarly articles is one kilometre, notes Gilliland, who's from Hamilton.

Gilliland, who has examined food accessibility in London, Ont., says the restructuring of retail into larger stores on the edges of urban centres has led to food deserts.

"The smaller grocery store where people walk to in their neighbourhood is long gone."

The end of the Delta No Frills will be tough on quite a few customers who don't have cars, Gilliland speculates.

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"Having that extra 20-minute walk is going to be difficult."

Samantha Ragona lamented the closure. She lives a block away and doesn't drive.

"My whole family shops here."