By: E&P Staff One month after Out & About Newspaper was removed from racks inside Nashville, Tenn.-area Kroger supermarkets, the regional gay and lesbian free weekly is coming back to some of the stores.
In an announcement Monday, Kroger said DistribuTech, the free newspaper distribution company, had misinterpreted the supermarket chain's policy against displaying free papers that promote specific religious, political or other agendas.
"Kroger has now completed the process that is required for all free publications to be distributed at Kroger stores," the company said. "Regarding Out & About Newspaper, that process was not followed by the company that Kroger uses to manage this service. As we have done elsewhere, Kroger suspended distribution until the agreed-upon steps were followed. In this case, it resulted in the return of the paper to some stores in the Nashville area."
Out & About had been distributed in 34 stores. It will return to 8 locations.
But in an article in Out & About Web site, Publisher Jerry Jones said the reduced distribution is actually better for the paper, which never wanted to be in all 34 stores.
"Our contract with DistribuTech required us to purchase stores by the district instead of being able to choose the stores we felt would have the highest pickup rate," Jones told the paper. "We're extremely pleased that Kroger could work with DistribuTech to place us in the stores that we have identified in zip codes where our readership is high."
Jones did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
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