A Victory Against Wal-Mart in Kentucky

For the past few months, Wal-Mart has been trying desperately to open a new supercenter in Florence, Kentucky. Like dozens of proposed Wal-Mart locations across the country, Florence residents weren’t happy. Their primary concerns were traffic ("This thing’s being shoehorned into a residential area,” said one resident) and impact on local business ("A dollar spent at Wal-Mart leaves the area. A dollar spent at a local business stays in the local area...Wal-Mart is the antithesis of local,” said another resident). Worst of all, Florence already has a Wal-Mart - less than three miles from where the proposed store would be built. Google Maps has the driving distance between the two at a whopping 6 minutes. You can read all about the proposal and the community reaction in this Cincinnati Enquirer article.

At this point I’d like to restate the situation: We have on one side Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world by far, with several thousand stores in America. On the other side we have a small but determined group of people from a small town in Kentucky, trying to stop the Bentonville Beast from opening another store in their city.

That’s what made the news yesterday even better: Wal-Mart Withdraws Application. That’s right - Wal-Mart has put its plans on hold for the forseeable future.

This is a great victory for the people of Florence, and an excellent message to Wal-Mart. Going against the will of potential customers will ultimately prove a terrible business decision and only buy the company bad publicity. Perhaps most importantly, it is a sign to other towns trying to fight Wal-Mart. It is difficult and intimidating to fight a giant like Wal-Mart, but to those of you doing so, keep up the good work, and take comfort in successes like Florence - victory is possible.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, September 06, 2007

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