North County Times
Feb. 28, 2008
Our view: Arguments against expansion don't add up.
The political backlash against Wal-Mart's remarkable business success is rearing its very ugly head locally, with Wal-Mart's enemies trying to convince the city of Vista to deny the retail chain permission to expand its University Drive site into a so-called Supercenter. A San Diego law firm filed a second appeal of the Planning Commission's approval of the project ---- a necessarily legal prelude in California before a lawsuit can be filed against a city.
The Supercenter, which would be 30,000 square feet larger than the current building, would include a grocery store in addition to the existing discount department store, offering local consumers another option in shopping for groceries.
Wal-Mart's crimes that critics say should lead to the expansion being blocked? Critics complain that Wal-Mart hires nonunion employees and is able to charge less for goods than independent shops because of its bulk buying.
Yet if a majority of Wal-Mart's employees wanted to unionize, guess what? They'd have done so.
And while the concern about independent, locally owned businesses being unable to compete is a valid one, it's also a fact of life in a market economy. But the flip side of that concern is the fact that local merchants will always find unserved niches that the Wal-Marts of the world can't serve, whether it's in specialized merchandise or more personalized service.
Other arguments regarding increased traffic and air pollution from those vehicles just don't hold water: There are a limited number of customers for area retailers to cater to, and if more of them go to Wal-Mart than its competitors, that's not an increase in traffic ---- it's just a redirection of existing traffic.
The fact is that not everyone will want to shop at Wal-Mart. And that's fine.
But to try to insist that no one be allowed to shop there because a few of us don't like the store seems more than a little unreasonable.
When the new Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in Columbia earlier this fall, it provided job opportunities for more than 200 people...
