A grocery store on the south side of Holmbladsgade - on the corner of Geislersgade - has been ordered to close by the city council.

It's a large retail space across the ground floor of a relatively new apartment building and it has been open since December 2021.

Looking in from the pavement, this appears to be a fairly standard supermarket but there are no tills or check-out counters so it is not a traditional retail space because it is not open to the public. Essentially, this is a warehouse where groceries, ordered on line through the Wolt App, are taken from the shelves and packed by warehouse staff to be collected and delivered to customers by bike riders.

That is a problem for the city council because that use does not comply with the local plan for this part of Amager - designated a residential area with appropriate retail - and there have also been complaints from nearby residents about noise …. specifically about loud mopeds that some of the riders use to deliver groceries.

From what I have seen, fast electric trikes, used by some of the riders, are much more dangerous. Recently, I heard some choice Danish words and even saw a fist raised in Christiania as a delivery driver from Wolt - riding on a wide electric trike with hefty tyres - raced at a fair lick through lanes packed with pedestrians to cross over the foot bridge to Amager and, believe me, it takes a bit to make laid-back residents of Christiania that angry about anything.

In 2023 planners closed another Wolt Store in Copenhagen, on Enghavevej, after complaints from the local residents committee.

These stores are defined as "dark" because they are not open to customers although that is a misnomer because this store is open until late - much later than other shops along the street - and it is brightly lit which is, I presume, for the security of the young warehouse workers and the delivery riders coming and going well into the night.

Along with groceries, Wolt delivers meals from restaurants that have been ordered on line and the app also has flowers and sex toys so they can bring to your door almost everything you could possibly want if you are staying in for an evening.

Dark stores have been banned in Amsterdam so presumably problems there have been enough to prompt strong action by the city council.

When notified, Wolt appealed the decision by planners to close the Holmbladsgade store and suggested that they could sell hot drinks and baked goods to customers coming in from the street but it appears that that solution has been rejected so, sometime before Easter, this particular dark store will go permanently dark.

At Wolt the delivery riders are called partners because they are not employed directly by the company and the company claims that they can not dictate what sort of bike or moped their riders use.

The company started in Finland in 2014 but in 2022 the business was sold to the American company DoorDash. Wolt came to Copenhagen in 2017 and there are now 10 Wolt stores across Denmark, in main cities, so this type of store with bike deliveries has created a new planning problem.

Before writing this post, I had to check out the Wolt App - I don't use delivery services - and spotted immediately one glaring irony. The delivery riders I've seen racing around the city, with their distinct pale blue delivery boxes, are generally fairly fit - they have to work hard and fast to earn their money - but for customers this is such an easy way to bulk load calories because you only have to walk from the sofa to the front door and back with your delivery of your next large hit of calories on demand.