Safeway has been stocking these handle-free paper bags across its SF locations, and according to all available information, there's no end in sight. No announced timeline for bringing handles back. No corporate mea culpa. Just vibes and suffering.

As one SF resident put it perfectly: "You pay a premium price and they can't even stock bags with handles." And that really is the crux of it. Safeway isn't exactly competing on price. Their whole value proposition in this city is convenience — they've locked down prime real estate in neighborhoods across San Francisco, which means for a huge number of residents, it's Safeway or a 30-minute bus ride. Another local was even more blunt: "People don't shop at Safeway because they like Safeway. People shop at Safeway because they have a near-monopoly on good supermarket locations in SF."

That's not a business earning loyalty. That's a business coasting on geography.

Now look — we're not here to demand government intervention over grocery bag handles. That would be insane, and frankly, this city has regulated enough things into oblivion already. But from a pure market perspective, this is what happens when competition is thin and consumers are captive. Safeway gets to shrug off a basic quality-of-life downgrade because where else are you going to go?

Some folks will correctly point out that you should just bring reusable bags. Fair enough. We live in a city where you practically get a free tote bag for breathing — one resident joked they've accumulated totes from everything from charity 5Ks to colonoscopies. But the principle still matters. If you're charging customers for bags, maybe make them functional?

The real lesson here isn't about handles. It's about what happens when a company faces no real competitive pressure in a city that makes it nearly impossible for new businesses to set up shop. Fix the zoning. Lower the permitting barriers. Let more grocers compete. Handles will follow.