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BOYCOTT - Enabling ICE raids and targeting patrons and day laborers with sonic weapons are not a good retail business strategy. That’s a lesson L.A. residents are driving home to hardware chain Home Depot this holiday season.
Hundreds of residents in Northeast L.A. have signed a petition to boycott Home Depot and stop a proposed new location at Eagle Rock Plaza. Trusted local hardware businesses in the communities around Eagle Rock, whose services and staying power would be undermined by the mega-retailer’s eighth store in an 8-mile radius, have provided more than 20 percent of the petition signatures.
The petition, launched by East Area Progressive Democrats (EAPD) in November, follows California voters’ landslide approval of Prop 50 to push back against power-grabs by Donald Trump amid evidence of self-enrichment and corruption by his family and Administration. The measure passed nearly by a 2-to-1 margin statewide. It passed by a 3-to-1 margin in L.A. County, with overwhelming support from Democrats and independents and even from many Republicans. Local hardware retailers report that patrons across the ideological spectrum are signing the EAPD “NO Home Depot” petition.
In October, EAPD drew 5,000 people to a rally in Glendale that included reminders to boycott Home Depot and drew raucous cheers from the overflow crowd.
In September, EAPD joined with members of Civic Sundays for a freeway visibility event on the 2 Freeway in Eagle Rock to raise awareness and stop any new Home Depot in the neighborhood. The event drew many hundreds of supportive honks from thousands of passing vehicles.
In August, EAPD collaborated with Centro CSO, an Eastside community organization, in a protest against ICE and calling out Home Depot for enabling it by more than 250 people outside the store location in Cypress Park, just a few miles south of the proposed new location in Eagle Rock. The site of that rally is exactly where the retailer this month began using sonic weapons installed atop light poles in its parking lot used by both patrons and day laborers.
In late August, L.A. Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Eagle Rock, announced opposition by her office to the proposed store in the neighborhood. Like EAPD, Jurado indicated other higher-value options for the property, including the possibility of affordable housing along a robust public-transit route.
Home Depot now tops a nationwide do-not-patronize list that socially aware customers are boycotting for the retailers’ Trump-servient behavior. As it has in seismic events of a different kind, California and L.A. in particular are now an epicenter of this growing consumer groundswell.
The cruelty of the sonic weapons outside the Home Depot store in Cypress Park is the latest black eye for the company, earning it negative headlines in national and international news outlets. Home Depot, in a reputational hole of its own making, seems intent on further digging. Meanwhile, the EAPD “NO Home Depot” petition continues to gain signatures.
(Hans Johnson is a longtime advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, environmental justice, and public education. His columns have appeared in USA Today and leading newspapers across more than 20 states. Based in Eagle Rock, he serves as president of East Area Progressive Democrats (EAPD), California’s largest grassroots Democratic club with over 1,100 members. Hans brings decades of organizing and policy experience to his work, advancing equity and accountability in local and national politics.)
