Sun Fresh Market, a grocery store that strived to improve what city leaders called a food desert in Kansas City’s East Side, closed its Linwood location this week due to persistent crime and security issues, operating costs that outweighed reserves and city investments, and sewage odors that drove customers away, officials claim.

In an online meeting with stakeholders Friday morning, store owners took aim at what they said has been a false narrative in the community that money was poorly invested and mismanaged.

The store closed because of several factors, said Emmet Pierson Jr., CEO of Community Builders Kansas City, the nonprofit which had been running the store since 2022.

“We stepped up to fill a void that no one else was going to fill,” Pierson said on the Friday morning Zoom cal

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