A judge’s approval of King Soopers request for a temporary restraining order against picketers attempts to prevent potential violence while respecting union members’ right to strike peacefully.

Denver District Judge Marie Moses’ written order, issued Wednesday, limits the number of picketers to “10 or fewer … on the premises and perimeter of each one of the King Soopers facilities.”

Moses also ordered that they not “block or stand in front of entrances” or vehicles. Kings Soopers officials asked the judge to limit picketers to five per store. 

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Members of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 walked out of most metro Denver area King Soopers and City Markets Jan. 12, after their contract expired Jan. 8. They’re alleging unfair labor practices on behalf of Kroger Co., the Cincinnati-based owner of all King Soopers and City Market stores in Colorado. Negotiations resumed last week and the two sides have met daily, at least through Wednesday. About 8,400 union members from 77 stores are participating in the strike.

Dillon Cos., doing business as King Soopers, filed the 17-page complaint Tuesday outlining no fewer that 82 instances of non-employee picketers; picketers yelling at and harassing customers and employees crossing the picket line; telling potential shoppers the stores are closed; threats or actual damage to Kings Soopers property; blocking vendor trucks from making deliveries; physical threats; trying to provoke confrontations with managers; littering; putting nails or screws under managers or employees not honoring the strike or following employees or customers, according to the complaint.

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Each incident was documented by a statement from an eyewitness, likely the security guards as they closely watched picketers, which formed groups of five to up to 50, according to the complaint. Some incidents documented seemed far from illegal, like picketers using an “angry face,” “a fighting stance,” standing in formation, huddling or moving in “barricade-like formations.”  

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Union officials on Tuesday denied claims of picketers breaking any laws or impeding customers or employees. They did not respond to an email requesting comment Thursday.

Picketers also faced threats of physical violence and, in at least one case, were called a derogatory racial slur.

On Jan. 14 at the Commerce City store, 15051 E. 104th Ave., one customer called the store manager “to complain that his wife was verbally attacked by picketers,” according to the complaint. When the store manager said he could not ask the picketers to leave, “the customer told the store manager that if he could not do anything, the customer would come take care of it himself, and made a statement to the effect of, ‘it is behavior like this that prompts situations like Boulder to occur.’ The customer was referring to the 2021 shooting at a Boulder King Soopers which resulted in ten deaths.”

Another customer shouted at picketers that “he would return every day, and that when he returned, he would bring his gun and shoot the picketers,” according to the complaint.

The judge’s order sought to prevent violence.

“King Soopers has established that employees, customers and vendors have been threatened with violence and have been made to feel fear and intimidation,” Moses wrote. “King Soopers has made a showing that the mass picketing has obstructed the ingress and egress of access to certain King Soopers stores. … There exists a danger of real, immediate and irreparable injury that may be prevented by entry of a temporary restraining order.”

Moses wrote that she is trying to balance that concern against the picketers legal and freedom of speech rights: “The Court finds that peaceful labor protests and picketing are in the public interest and any injunction issued by the court will necessarily impact that public interest.”

“The court intends to protect the important public interest, namely the important rights of picketers to protest what they view as unfair labor conditions, by narrowly drafting the temporary restraining order in a manner that maximizes the public interest in a peaceful protest while protecting the physical safety of customers, employees and vendors.”

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Other prohibited behavior:

• “Interfering with, injuring, menacing, threatening, molesting, intimidating, shouting at any person within 20 feet of that person.”

• “Following any vehicle or employee of King Soopers or its customers, suppliers, and carriers, or any person leaving King Soopers’ facilities.”

Officials were ordered to pass the instructions to picket captains. The order covers all stores in the “Denver Metropolitan Area” including the counties of Denver, Arapahoe, Boulder, Jefferson, Adams, Douglas, Broomfield and Elbert.

Moses scheduled a hearing for Jan. 28. Union officials had not filed a response as of late Thursday afternoon.