San Diego bans Wal-Mart Supercenters
Yesterday, the San Diego city council voted to ban certain kinds of large retail stores from the city limits. The council did not explicitly mention Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT), but the definition of the stores to be prohibited makes it pretty clear that they had the giant retailer in mind.
Specifically, the nation's eight largest city voted to ban stores that are larger than 90,000 square feet and that use at least 10 percent of their floor space to sell groceries, which are not taxed in California. Apparently, only Wal-Mart Supercenters meet this criteria. Wal-Mart Supercenters are on average 185,000 square feet and offer groceries along with the usual Wal-Mart products.
Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San Diego, has threatened to veto the measure. He claims that city council is engaging in "social engineering." Supporters of the measure made the usual points: Wal-Mart drives local shops out of business, provides low wages, and creates traffic problems and pollution around its giant stores.
The struggle between Wal-mart and its critics has been going on for years now. Chicago city council recently voted for a living wage measure that was aimed largely at Wal-Mart and would have forced the company to pay higher wages to its workers in the city. However, the mayor of Chicago overrode city council's vote. Will the same thing happen in San Diego? Are these mayors simply corporate stooges, willing to do whatever it takes to allow Wal-Mart to make lots of money in their cities? Or are they looking out for their citizens' best interests, trying to attract retail jobs and fight high unemployment, no matter what the wages? Maybe it's a little bit of both.
Specifically, the nation's eight largest city voted to ban stores that are larger than 90,000 square feet and that use at least 10 percent of their floor space to sell groceries, which are not taxed in California. Apparently, only Wal-Mart Supercenters meet this criteria. Wal-Mart Supercenters are on average 185,000 square feet and offer groceries along with the usual Wal-Mart products.
Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San Diego, has threatened to veto the measure. He claims that city council is engaging in "social engineering." Supporters of the measure made the usual points: Wal-Mart drives local shops out of business, provides low wages, and creates traffic problems and pollution around its giant stores.
The struggle between Wal-mart and its critics has been going on for years now. Chicago city council recently voted for a living wage measure that was aimed largely at Wal-Mart and would have forced the company to pay higher wages to its workers in the city. However, the mayor of Chicago overrode city council's vote. Will the same thing happen in San Diego? Are these mayors simply corporate stooges, willing to do whatever it takes to allow Wal-Mart to make lots of money in their cities? Or are they looking out for their citizens' best interests, trying to attract retail jobs and fight high unemployment, no matter what the wages? Maybe it's a little bit of both.











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-29-2006 @ 1:36PM
luisfmar said...
In any western country (except probably Germany and the Scandinavian countries), politicians will always work to favor their best interests, which in turn is the best interest of corporations and the wealthier people.
Very sad to say, we call ourselves 'democratic', just to find out that in most cases, we live in a very modern form of slavery. It's true that quality of life and life expectancy has improved, but the big corporations that run the world are not much different from the monarchies and courts from the past centuries. Even worse, today there is a lot more poor people, and on top of them, a class of wealthy people, richer than anyone before, that can't have enough, and with a greed and power that even any late British, French or Spanish king will envy.
11-29-2006 @ 2:01PM
keith owen said...
maybe the mayor's realize that these grassroots uprisings are started by a special interest group that convince$ councilmen to be their stooges. Who do you think this bill protects most, shoppers and potential workers that will be taken advantage of, or stores repesented by the UFCW, that will see membership decrease with the sales loss. I've been there, I know.
11-29-2006 @ 2:41PM
lee carter said...
those reason's are crap any large store put's the family owned store out . and as for wages some gover. job's pay less than walmart. so don't allow those low paying job's