Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update For Elected Officials 9/16/2008
Check out this week’s issue of the Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials – a compilation of Wal-Mart news from across the country and beyond.
This week’s issue begins with reports from two states that Wal-Mart is undercutting high school activity and athletic fundraising by selling merchandise bearing the logos of local high schools. In both cases, the schools in question were never contacted by Wal-Mart about whether sales of the items would hurt the school’s efforts to raise funds.
In addition, you’ll find Time and The New York Times delving into the topic of Wal-Mart moms, and the role they’ll play in the November election. Plus, check out our section on Wal-Mart and the environment to find out more about the unethical behavior of Wal-Mart’s sustainable mining supplier, and from California read about how the retail giant fought (unsuccessfully) a port-truck plan that would require tougher environmental and security standards.
And finally, check out our “Stateside” and “Wal-Mart International” sections to find out what’s going on with Wal-Mart around the country and across the globe.
Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials
Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, September 16 | 5 comments | Permalink
CALIFORNIA SITE FIGHT: CLOVIS COUNCIL OVERTURNS WAL-MART APPROVAL, WILL STUDY IMPACT MORE
Clovis council votes for more study on mall with Wal-Mart [Fresno Bee (Calif.)]
Last year’s approval of a 491,000-square-foot Clovis shopping center anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter was overturned Monday night by the Clovis City Council.
The council voted 5-0 to decertify the environmental report and the project’s site plan without discussion. No members of the public addressed the issue.
The shopping center proposed for the northeast corner of Herndon and Clovis avenues includes a Wal-Mart Supercenter that has been the focal point of a legal battle between the city and shopping center opponents.
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Posted by Luke West on Tuesday, September 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
UTAH SITE FIGHT: NO BIG BOXES IS A GOOD THING
Parleys Wal-Mart: A small victory for the future [Salt Lake Tribune]
When a unanimous Salt Lake City Planning Commission said no to Wal-Mart’s request to rezone the site of the old Kmart store on Parleys Way, it increased the chances that someday that property may be redeveloped as something other than a big box store with a grocery in it. That’s a good thing.
But for the time being, that probably won’t slow Wal-Mart’s plans for a supercenter. Because the existing store is a nonconforming use that included a grocery, Wal-Mart can remodel the 40-year-old building into a supercenter. That’s what Wal-Mart representatives say the company will do if it doesn’t get the rezoning necessary to build a new store when the final decision goes to the City Council.
So, in terms of automobile traffic that Wal-Mart will generate, or the competitive impact it will have on neighboring businesses, the Planning Commission’s decision doesn’t mean much. There still will be a Wal-Mart on the site that could be open 24 hours a day.
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Posted by Luke West on Tuesday, September 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
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
Oceanside, CA. Wal-Mart Brings “Small Wars” to California
This week Sprawl-Busters received the following alert from a resident in Escondido, California: “Wal-Mart is at it again, this time in Escondido. Wal-Mart is contacting the Escondido Planning Commission to construct a smaller Wal-Mart neighborhood store. Wal-Mart has tried to enter the San Diego Metro lately and was turned down by the San Diego City Council.” The San Diego Union-Tribune reports this week that Wal-Mart is planning to test out its new “smaller” format Marketside store in Oceanside, California in San Diego County. A developer has quietly listed Wal-Mart as the grocery store tenant for 11,000 s.f. of leased space downtown at 848 J St., according to tenant improvement plans filed with the Centre City Development Corp. The Gatlin Development Co., based in San Diego, has applied to Oceanside’s Planning Commission to build a small shopping center that will contain a 12,650-s.f. grocery store. The company has also filed with the state for a liquor license for the store. The only announced Marketside pilot stores have been in Arizona, and Wal-Mart would not confirm the Oceanside project. “This (Arizona) is all we have shared on the new format to date,” a Wal-Mart spokeswoman told the Union Tribune.
“It’s a pilot right now, and we’re concentrating on Phoenix,” Wal-Mart told the North County Times. “At this point we haven’t really said whether we’re looking at doing this anywhere else.” But the Oceanside store proves otherwise. One report has suggested that Wal-Mart eventually hopes to build the Marketside concept to as many as 1,500 locations---places where the superstore concept won’t fit. Wal-Mart’s smaller stores are in response to the British invasion of Fresh & Easy grocery stores being developed by Tesco—a British rival to Wal-Mart’s ASDA in the United Kingdom.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, September 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
CALIFORNIA SITE FIGHT: TRYING TO MOVE ON IN WHITTIER
Only winner in Wal-Mart suits: the attorney [Whittier Daily News (Calif.)]
ROSEMEAD - After four years and four lawsuits over the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Grove Avenue, the only clear winner appears to be the attorney who handled the suits.
A $400,000 settlement reached earlier this year went straight to the coffers of attorney Cory Briggs, who represented a nonprofit corporation and a Rosemead school district opposed to the Wal-Mart.
“The settlement is done,” Briggs said. “There was one check written, and that came to me.”
The lawsuit, filed by Save Our Community and Garvey School District, alleged Wal-Mart was out of compliance with environmental laws.
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Posted by Luke West on Friday, September 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
CALIFORNIA SITE FIGHT: ATASCADERO CITY COUNCIL COMMISSIONS SECOND SURVEY
Chamber commissions second Wal-Mart survey [Atascadero News (Calif.)]
The Atascadero Chamber of Commerce has commissioned its second survey to gain information in regards to the business community’s desire for a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter, an action which the locally-based Oppose Wal-Mart Group believes violates the organization’s nonprofit status.
The current survey, conducted by Los Angeles-based polling company Cardinal Communications, comes at a time when Atascadero voters are set to decide on a ballot measure designed to ban all supercenters and place a 150,000-square-foot cap on the size of big box development.
The survey follows an August 2007 phone poll commissioned by the chamber and funded by the companies with the highest investment in a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter, The Rottman Group and Wal-Mart, and involved calls to chamber members followed by calls to a random selection of the city’s business license list, chamber CEO and president Joanne Main said. But unlike the previous survey, Main said the current poll cost $1,500, which originated from the organization’s general fund.
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Posted by Luke West on Friday, September 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
CALIFORNIA SITE FIGHT: NO SHORTAGE OF OPINIONS IN REDLANDS AND SOLEDAD
Why all the fuss about building a new Wal-Mart? [Redlands Daily Facts]
I can’t understand all the uproar over a new Wal-Mart being planned in Redlands. We’ve already had one for 15 years, and a new one would replace the old one. So what’s the big deal? People don’t like to save money?
The criticism is unfounded and baseless, and I’m already tired of hearing about it. I hope the city approves it.
SOAPBOX: One voice for Wal-Mart in Soledad [Salinas Californian]
Many working people in Soledad are struggling to make ends meet. As our paychecks shrink and health-care costs skyrocket, people are looking to save money. They want to spend their money, what’s left of it, as they choose.
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Posted by Luke West on Friday, September 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
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