Wal-Mart Grants Stay of Execution for Local Businesses
OK, Port Angeles merchants — you have about 2-½ to 3 years to keep doing business before you'll start hearing that giant sucking sound pulling all of your customers away. The new Wal-Mart Supercenter is expected to be up and running sometime in 2010. Two years ago they were expecting to be open by 2007, so we’re getting a brief stay of execution.
Local merchants, environmentalists and a group called Wake Up Port Angeles are opposed to the new Wal-Mart Supercenter because of:
When/if the supercenter gets completed, there's a chance the City of Port Angeles might purchase the present Wal-Mart location and use it for an indoor soccer center or a swimming pool.
Local merchants, environmentalists and a group called Wake Up Port Angeles are opposed to the new Wal-Mart Supercenter because of:
- The danger to salmon runs in Morse Creek;
Well-paid jobs disappearing and being replaced by Wal-Mart jobs;
Increased costs to taxpayers;
Increased traffic on 101.
When/if the supercenter gets completed, there's a chance the City of Port Angeles might purchase the present Wal-Mart location and use it for an indoor soccer center or a swimming pool.
Labels: City of Port Angeles, Morse Creek, Port Angeles merchants, traffic on 101, Wake Up Port Angeles, Wal-Mart Supercenter
posted by Tom Harper at 2:36 PM
4 Comments:
Maybe they could build one out by the airport too? Then people wouldn't have to drive ALL the way across town. Agnew and Dungeness are wide open too and ripe for the picking. Perhaps they could co-locate with all our new Starbucks. Bleh.
Its not that I dispise Walmart per se, its just that they don't pull their weight when it comes to worker's compensation and general cost to the community. Neither am I a big fan of unions, but in this case, they might be a good match. (its interesting to note that Walmart shut down a store in Canada rather than let it unionize)
Then, of course, there is complaining about the trade deficit while standing in line to buy cheap plasic junk from China.
I hate Wal-Mart. They aren't good neighbors, lousy for business, horrible to manufacturers, and indifferent employers. Please, please, please...make them stay where they are, or go away completely. Why do we need a WalMart in our big box mess in Sequim, and other in Port Angeles? Isn't one enough?
It's morally corrupt to shop there. "good prices" at another's expense is not good business, nor is it good a good moral value.
I refuse to shop there, and haven't, won't and will not!
I forget where I read this, but for every dollar you spend at a local non-franchise store, 60 cents of that dollar stays in the community. For every dollar you spend at a big box store, six cents of that dollar stays in your community and the other 94 cents diffuses out to God knows where.
So it may be cheaper in the short term to shop at Wal-Mart and Home Depot, but in the long term you're screwing over your local economy.
Well said! Let's support our local community. It's well worth it.
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