The Sacramento Business Journal published an article entitled  "Texas chicken chain eyes Sacramento, Placer counties for California debut".  Our Newsroom Elves did not have to read the article to get tingles up their spines. "Please," they implored, :"not ANOTHER chicken place in Arden Arcade. We already have more than our fair share!" 

Of course they are right about that. Out-of-area investors seem to have some kind of addiction gene going towards Arden Arcade. We can't just have 1 or 2 {enter type of business here}, we have to have them all over the place. It seems like on just about every corner we get:

• convenience stores with to-go alcohol sales,
• retail sales of donated goods,
• self-storage facilities,
• cell phone stores and cell phone pop-ups,
• fast coffee places, and
• FAST FOOD CHICKEN PLACES.

Still, the Elves read the article anyway. It reported that Layne's Chicken Fingers takes pride in beating Raising Cane's to the start line for fast food chicken back in Texas and is now looking for beachheads in the Sacramento Region. The article said the chain's investors:

OK, OK. We get it. We realize our region is among the nation's leaders at attracting pretty much every chain store in America and that our community is at Ground Zero. And we know the chains go in cycles. Department stores like Macy's, Nordstrom's, Kohl's, Sears, Gottshalk's, and Woolworth's are gone, replaced by Dollar/Dollar General, Dollar Tree/Family Dollar, 99¢ Store, Walmart, Target and Costco. It wasn't enough that we had chains like Safeway, SaveMart, Raley's/Bel Air/Grocery Outlet, Trader Joe's, Smart&Final, and Whole Foods, we had to get a Winco, too (even though Winco is twice the size of a typical grocery store), and that led to Sprouts and Walmart Neighborhood Market. We even have a chain grocery store (Amaazon) that sells nothing.

That Amazon Market ghost store is at Watt and El Camino in Country Club Center, across the street from Country Club Plaza. What else is at Watt and El Camino? FAST FOOD CHICKEN PLACES. Different ones competing with the others. Hey, why limit the competition to Watt and El Camino? Maybe put another one on Arden, next to Dave's Hot Chicken. Or on Alta Arden, across from Chick-Fil-A. Isn't it great that the County's economic development strategy let's businesses fight with each other, with openings and closures happening all the time? Yeah, that's real economic stability, isn't it? Well...maybe it works for out-of-area investors to toy with our community like it's a game board, but is that what's really good for local economic sustainability? What do you think?