Crime linked to Wal-Mart Super centers overwhelms small-town police

[PfcHammer]

http://www.canada.com/windsor/story.asp?id=F7E9D92E-7796-4964-95E2-EE2FCFA799BF

Crime linked to Wal-Mart Super centers overwhelms small-town police

ALEXANDRIA SAGE
Canadian Press

Sunday, May 23, 2004

HARRISVILLE, Utah (AP) - For the tiny police force in this bedroom community, the south end of town never caused much bother. Horses grazed in the green pastures, and for years two solitary bars provided the only late-night distractions for those who needed something to do.

Then in 2001 Wal-Mart opened a 24-hour Super center that swallowed 19,700 square metres of rural fields.

Since then police in Harrisville, population 4,000, have been forced to confront big-city realities.

<snip>

As the world's largest retailer puts its stamp on rural communities, some towns are discovering that while the 24-hour big-box store may bring financial benefits, they go hand-in-hand with an unintended consequence: the increased burden on law enforcement.

<snip>




Wallyworld's selling guns and ammo can't help either

[w4rma]

1. It's not the guns/ammo its the destruction of the small buisnesses

that used to compete with one another and provided well paying jobs.

[TahitiNut]

3. Yes, they both destroy the existing tax base ...

... they manage to escape paying local taxes by both locating their monstrosities in tax-twilight-zones and cutting deals for tax exemptions. They're malignant socioeconoomic tumors.

[gristy]

2. This is evidence of the town's gov't thinking they could get something

(taxes from Wal-Mart) for nothing (greater police expenditures? Whadaya talkin' about??).

[soup]

4. Quite a few towns are opening police substations

at the 'Super Centers' because of the rising crime rate.

Wasn't there a discussion here a while back about employees being locked in, and unable to leave when one was injured?


Here's a few of the previous discussions and articles on Walmart I've bookmarked/ saved:

Wal-Mart Facts Everyone Needs to Know - by brainshrub Apr-22-04
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1458215

Walmart: A wage depressing, sprawl inducing, union busting, benefit... - by JanMichael Wed Apr-21-04
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1451785

Each Walmart Store Costs taxpayers $420,750 annually in social services - radwriter0555 Wed Feb-18-04
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1134113

-----

The World's Richest People 2003
http://www.forbes.com/2003/02/26/billionaireland.html

-----

The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17783

-----

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know
The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?
From: Issue 77 December 2003, Page 68
By: Charles Fishman
Photographs by: Livia Corona
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

-----

February 01, 2004
Wal-Mart's Low Prices Exact High Cost
• posted by Dan Gillmor 08:34 AM

Let me say it up front: I don't like Wal-Mart.

Among other things, I don't like the giant retailer's robber-baron business practices, or its treatment of employees. I don't like the small-town wreckage it has left in its wake, or the way it has forced suppliers to move jobs offshore.

But Wal-Mart's customers enjoy what comes from such policies: a big selection and low prices. And Wal-Mart's management and shareholders love the huge profits.

This is an ongoing American conundrum. We look for the best deal today, whether it's in our best interest tomorrow, sometimes because we have no realistic other choice.
http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001741.shtml#001741

-----

February 9, 2004
by the lndependent/UK
Exploitation is the Price of Cheaper Food, Says Oxfam
by Cahal Milmo

Global retailers, including British supermarkets are, systematically inflicting poor working conditions on millions of women workers to conduct price wars and feed ever-rising consumer expectations of cheap produce, Oxfam said yesterday.

A study of employment conditions in 12 countries which supply items from jeans to gerberas to international brands such as Walmart and Tesco found that the largely female workforce in many suppliers is working longer hours for low wages in unhealthy conditions and failing to reap any benefit from globalization.

Women in developing countries are estimated to occupy between 60 and 90 per cent of the jobs in the labor-intensive stages of the clothing industry and the production of fresh fruit and vegetables destined for supermarket shelves in Europe and America.

Oxfam claims the buying policies of the new breed of global retailers as they use competition between suppliers as far apart as Thailand and Kenya to demand lower prices and increased efficiencies have resulted in imposing worsening labor conditions on those at the bottom of the supply chain.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0209-02.htm

-----

February 5, 2004
Walmart shortlists Liberty for footwear supply

Bangalore, Walmart Inc., the world's largest retail supermart, has shortlisted India's Liberty Shoes Ltd to source footwear for its global retail chain.

Impressed by its high quality and manufacturing process, $256-billion Walmart has decided to place an import order with Liberty later this year, along with similar orders to six other Indian suppliers, including Mirza Tanners.
>snip
Once the arrangement is formalized, the Rs. 3-billion Liberty hopes to secure bigger orders from Walmart, riding on its international brand equity.

"Based on our superior quality and design variety, we expect the supply order to go up in value terms to Rs 10 billion in the next 3 years," Gupta claimed.
http://www.keralanext.com/news/index.asp?id=25773

-----

Here's an odd one:
February 12, 2004
Florida Supreme Court upholds canker eradication program

BY PHIL LONG

[e-mail]

The state's controversial citrus canker law is constitutional, the Florida Supreme Court ruled today.

The 33-page unanimous decision rejects a Broward County judge's contention that the law was based on questionable science and said that the Legislature was within its rights to adopt the law.

At issue is whether the state was right in destroying more than 600,000 residential citrus trees on nearly 200,000 South Florida properties. Another 176,000 citrus trees are set for destruction.

The eradication program is built on the theory that all trees in a 1,900-foot zone around an infected tree are ''exposed and will become infected,'' and must be destroyed to eeliminate further spread of the disease.
>snip
The state has been paying home owners a $100 WalMart voucher for the first tree taken and a check for $55 each for all remaining trees.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7938437.htm

-----

Jobs Coming To Pekin, Illinois
Posted February 13, 2004 1:51pm

The Pekin Mall isn't the only growing business in that city. The Wal-Mart on Court Street is upgrading to a new Supercenter just down the road.

The bigger facility is expected to create about 100 new jobs. A temporary hiring center has been opened to handle the wave of applications.

The store's manager sees the strong response as good news for the once struggling economy.

The store's taken close to 1,000 applications since Monday. All of the current WalMart employees will move to the new location.

The store is slated to open in April.
http://week.com/morenews/morenews-read.asp?id=3566

-----

Feb. 17, 2004
Miller report hits Wal-Mart 'costs'

By Thomas Peele
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

CONCORD - Colossus retailer Wal-Mart drains government resources because its low-paid, under-insured or non-insured workers have to rely on public subsidies, such as school lunch programs and Section 8 housing, according to a congressional report Rep. George Miller released here Monday.

With supporters of a March ballot measure to ban Wal-Mart superstores and other "big-box" businesses in unincorporated Contra Costa County flanking him, Miller, D-Martinez, ripped the Arkansas-based corporation for creating "downward spirals in communities," violating child labor and workplace safety laws and "paying wages below industry averages."

The report, which the Democratic staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee prepared, estimates that taxpayers bear $420,750 in social services costs for each Wal-Mart store with 200 workers. The company is the nation's largest employer with an estimated 1.2 million employees and more than 3,200 stores.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/7970996.htm

-----

February 18, 2004
Toy wars
Drop in prices, sales force manufacturers to take on Wal-Mart

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., discount retailers won a war with other toy stores this past holiday season. Now toymakers, a casualty in that bitter fight, have decided to make their own stand.

To protect themselves and toy retailers they see as key to their profits, some manufacturers plan to deliver fewer hot toys to Wal-Mart and to have more exclusive launches at chains like Toys "R" Us Inc. It's a rare instance of manufacturers challenging the biggest U.S. retail juggernaut and its low-price approach to business.

Wild Planet Toys' Aquapets, an interactive critter, will be at Toys "R" Us exclusively for three months this spring before it reaches the mass merchants.

"The success of Toys 'R' Us is important for the health of the toy industry," said Danny Grossman, founder and CEO of Wild Planet.

Said Jim Silver, publisher of the Toy Book, an industry magazine: "Wal-Mart is a very important part of the toy business, but toymakers don't want its low-pricing strategies to devalue their brands and their business — and put more toy retailers out of business."

The price wars contributed to the bankruptcies last holiday season of FAO Inc., owner of the famed FAO Schwarz, and KB Toys Inc., which plans to close nearly a third of its stores.
http://goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040218/BUSINESS03/102180278

-----

Wal-Mart: America's store or juggernaut

By Ken Fountain
Baytown Sun
Published February 18, 2004

By KEN FOUNTAIN

The Baytown Sun

Is it just a big ol’ store with old-fashioned, customer-oriented values, or is the monster that ate America’s mom-and-pops? In its 41-year history, Wal-Mart still holds both reputations.

Discount retailing behemoth Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest company, with $94.6 billion in assets and $246.5 billion in revenues last year, according to Fortune Magazine.
>snip<
Wal-Mart is also reviled by many for creating the template of the “big box” store, copied by other chains like Costco, Home Depot, Best Buy and others, that drove individually-owned retail stores out of business and shuttered the once-thriving downtowns of small towns across the country (including Baytown’s own Goose Creek downtown area, now being revitalized).

But many say those businesses were doomed in the ever-quickening, globally competitive, service-oriented economy. If it wasn’t Wal-Mart, they say, it would have been somebody else.
http://web.baytownsun.com/story.lasso?wcd=14914
-----

Note: Apologies for any broken links. Some of these were saved to notepad, and may no longer be working.

Edit for spacing - a person could go blind, for heaven's sake....