Relief for diabetic customers: Check. Diabetic employees? Not so much.
In a press release distributed this morning, Wal-Mart has announced that it is “once again driving unnecessary health care costs out of the system and passing the savings along to its customers through the pharmacy aisles.”
How is it doing it this time? By offering exclusive-to-Wal-Mart diabetes management products for $9 each at all Wal-Mart pharmacies nationwide. That, might I say, is quite excellent actually. I myself don’t have - and don’t have immediate family members who have - diabetes. But I’ve known and worked with people who do, and one thing an individual with diabetes shouldn’t have to worry about is the cost of testing and treatment supplies, which I could imagine can get quite expensive.
No, the problem with this story isn’t in what Wal-Mart is announcing. It is, instead, the way in which Wal-Mart has treated its own employees who have diabetes. Helping the masses might seem a little nicer if the company treated its own diabetic employees with slightly more compassion and understanding.
The gold standard of what I’m talking about is the story of Stephen Orr. Orr worked as a pharmacist at a Nebraska Wal-Mart. Orr has Type 1 diabetes, a condition in which the body does not produce insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into the energy needed for daily life. As a result, Orr must administer insulin to himself several times each day. For a while, management allowed him to, you know, do the things he needed to do over the course of a day to stay alive...like actually take a lunch break. Eventually though, business and customer traffic forced Wal-Mart - instead of hiring an additional pharmacist - to inform Orr he could no longer take a break to eat and rest. In fact, he was told to eat behind the pharmacy counter if and when store traffic slowed. If you can’t guess what happened, I’ll tell you - Orr’s blood glucose levels dropped severely on multiple occasions, causing him to experience symptoms of hypoglycemia, which can include dizziness or lightheadedness, confusion, difficulty speaking, and feeling anxious or weak. Wal-Mart still refused to accommodate him, and his manager eventually fired him, explicitly telling him it was because of his diabetes.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, September 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
UTAH SITE FIGHT: VOTE TONIGHT IN SUGAR HOUSE
Could plan to build Roanoke County Wal-Mart Supercenter prevail? [WDBJ-TV (Va.)]
Four months after Wal-Mart said it was abandoning plans for a new supercenter in the Clearbrook area of Roanoke County, the project may be moving forward again.
The project had the county’s approval back in May, and it had survived a challenge in court, but the deal apparently broke down in negotiations with some of the property owners. Now, residents of the neighborhood wonder whether or not the project is back on.
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Posted by Luke West on Wednesday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
Clearbrook, VA. Wal-Mart Project Rises From the Dead
A Wal-Mart proposal in Virginia has risen like a vampire from the dead to terrorize an entire neighborhood. On February 3, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that a Tennessee developer was trying to build 204,000 s.f. Wal-Mart superstore across from the Clearbrook, Virginia Elementary School. But a group called Citizens for Smart Growth challenged HolRob Investments, the developer, and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors.
HolRob tried to have the citizen’s lawsuit dismissed, but the developer’s motion was denied by the court, and the project went to a Circuit Court judge. The CSG group charged that the project’s review process was collapsed into just six weeks, ending in a 4-1 vote by the County Board in October, 2006. The citizen’s group wanted the case remanded back to the County’s Planning Commission, with a full traffic study to be done this time. The group retained Richmond, Virginia attorney Phillip Strother, who also served as the victorious lead counsel for citizens in Front Royal, Virginia before the Virginia Supreme Court.
The residents pointed out that the land Wal-Mart wanted was intended for a “village concept” in the county’s Overlay District guidelines. The Clearbrook Overlay District Concept calls for small commercial and retail development similar in feeling to a village street-—the antithesis of a Wal-Mart supercenter.
“The first time the overlay is questioned the county rolls [over],” one CSG member complained. “Some folks have said we’re doing away with the overlay,” the County’s Administrator said “But they’re complying with the overlay” by seeking the special-use permit it allows,” he added. “All of us hoped for more of a type of development” in style and size--- things like doctor’s offices, sit-down restaurants and small office buildings.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
VIRGINIA SITE FIGHT: TROUBLE BREWING IN ROANOKE
Roanoke Co. may yet get Wal-Mart [The Roanoke Times (Va.)]
Call it the Wal-Mart that won’t die.
A proposed supercenter for South Roanoke County that had been declared economically unfeasible by the retail giant in May now appears to be back on the drawing board.
But the company apparently is facing a short deadline—just under seven weeks—to reacquire contracts or options on the dozen parcels it needs for the new store.
Oct. 24 will be the county’s deadline for demonstrating that the company intends to “utilize the granted special-use permit in a period of time deemed reasonable” for the development.
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Posted by Luke West on Tuesday, September 09 | 0 comments | Permalink
MARYLAND SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART SLOWLY MOVES FORWARD IN BERLIN
Super Wal-Mart paperwork moves slowly [The Daily Times (Md.)]
After being talked about for more than three years, the Super Wal-Mart proposed in Berlin finally appears to be moving forward.
According to project attorney Mark S. Cropper, the Super Wal-Mart proposed to take the place of the current Berlin-Ocean City Wal-Mart is working its way through Worcester County’s site plan process.
“We’ve recently met with the technical review committee and received the technical comments regarding the site plan,” Cropper said. “The consultants are addressing those comments now.”
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Posted by Luke West on Tuesday, September 09 | 0 comments | Permalink
Berlin, MD. Get Away From Strip Malls & Visit Wal-Mart By the Sea
Wal-Mart discount store #2560 sits along Ocean Gateway road in Berlin, Maryland. According to local officials, the store is “over-shopped.” If that’s true, it’s not from people in Berlin, because the community has less than 4,000 people living there, an increase from 1990, when the population was 2,616. The nearby community of Ocean City, Maryland has roughly 7,000 people—so the two communities combined couldn’t “overshop” any store. If they did, the competitors would have no business at all.
The entire county of Worcester in Maryland has just about enough people to support a superstore: 49,500. Worcester County pitches itself to tourists—not to big box shoppers. Located on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Worcester County is Maryland’s only seaside county, “known for Ocean City’s clean sandy beaches, outdoor recreation, steamed crabs and the famous wild pony herd on Assateague Island State Park and National Seashore.” Worcester County also claims to have the best birding in the state, “and 100 miles of marked bicycle trails on flat country roads.” And if no citizen opposition creates waves---Worcester County will soon be able to claim the 14th supercenter in Maryland.
But it turns out that Worcester County, which is now considering plans for a long-delayed Wal-Mart supercenter, is talking out of both sides of its mouth. In one tourist promotion, the tiny town of Berlin is described to visitors as “the exquisite, Victorian-era town of Berlin with its romantic bed and breakfasts. Or visit historic Snow Hill and Pocomoke City, with their 100-plus century-old homes and proximity to the beautiful Pocomoke River.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, September 09 | 0 comments | Permalink
Charlotte, NC Wal-Mart Looking for $500,000 Subsidy
A Wal-Mart developer in Charlotte, North Carolina is looking for a handout. In fact, he’s looking for a half million dollar tax bailout in order to give Charlotte another Wal-Mart supercenter. There are currently “only” eight Wal-Mart stores in Charlotte, half of them are supercenters.
So another Wal-Mart for Charlotte is akin to bringing coals to Newcastle, or swallows to Capistrano. The idea of the public having to pay for the privilege of having another Wal-Mart is adding insult to injury. The Charlotte Business Journal reports this week that the developer, Faison and Associates, has asked city taxpayers to pony up $500,000 for a Wal-Mart supercenter in the abandoned Amity Gardens Shopping Center.
Faison says it doesn’t have enough money to pay for a road connecting the project to the abutting Coliseum Shopping Center. This boondoggle was first announced in 2006, when the city gave the land in question a rezoning. The zoning change allowed a mix of retail and other commercial uses for the property, but Faison is building only the 155,000-s.f.
Wal-Mart superstore. City officials seems to be happy to subsidize this wealthy developer and the world’s richest retailer, because the project represents a $25 million investment in the city. So what’s the big deal if taxpayers have to toss in $400,000 for road construction, and another $100,000 to clean up contamination on the site? There is no way that Wal-Mart could afford to chip in---their budget has been blown on image advertising and lobbying contributions.
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Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, September 04 | 0 comments | Permalink
Blacksburg, VA. State’s Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Anti-Wal-Mart Appeal
On May 30, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart had become ensnared in a legal mess in the town of Blacksburg, Virginia. The town of Blacksburg adopted land use ordinance 1450, which limits the size of retail buildings in town to 80,000 s.f. Larger buildings require a special use permit issued by the town council. Wal-Mart clearly wants to ignore laws like ordinance 1450.
Residents told Sprawl-Busters last year that they had succeeded in getting their zoning law passed. “After a marathon 5-hour public hearing,” citizens wrote, “the Blacksburg Town Council passed, by a 7-0 vote, an ordinance that will require a special use permit for any retail over 80,000 square feet. A grassroots effort by Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth (BURG) brought in petitions with over 3,500 signatures supporting the ordinance. This was more than the total number of votes cast in the last, hotly contested, mayoral election. Speakers at the hearing in favor of the ordinance outnumbered those opposed by a ratio of 8 to 1. Almost all of the opposition to the ordinance came from individuals with a direct stake in a development on South Main Street that includes a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The ordinance gives us the breathing room we need to have the thorough study and public discussion of the best way of regulating big box development. We will be looking at ways to strengthen the protections of the new ordinance. In order to circumvent the new law and the will of the town’s residents, the developers of the South Main project sued the town. They asked the circuit court to retroactively award them vested rights to build their supercenter. We are elated at the unequivocal statement that the Town Council has made, but are still focused on winning the case and stopping this project that would be disastrous for the town.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, September 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
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