Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleDe
Some cities specifically won't let them in town due to the devastation of local business, while they would allow Target or K-mart.
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Where? AFAIK that would be illegal anywhere in the US. As stated, at least. There are many ways to accomplish the same end, but they can't do it openly *because it's Walmart*. The most common way (IIRC) is for cities to rezone (or refuse to rezone) the location where Walmart wants to put their store. But if they do that specifically because it's Walmart it won't hold up in court. They need some other reason, such as traffic density (i.e. they wouldn't let a Target or KMart open a store in that location either).
Other methods that I think I remember being used were opinion polls (Walmart would be stupid to open a store in a town that voted 80% against them) and tax breaks. (With tax breaks, it's a bit easier to choose which companies you give the tax breaks to. But you still need to be careful not to deny it "just because it's Walmart".)
One way that could be done, although I don't remember it ever happening, is to require all businesses (or all businesses in a certain category) to adhere to certain policies. For instance, all businesses with more than 50 employees might be required to provide health insurance. For years Walmart was notorious for not providing health insurance although I believe they now do so. (That's not a knock against Walmart, BTW, those mom-and-pop businesses people admire so much usually didn't provide HI either.)
Mainly, the thing to remember is that it's easy for a city to block the opening of just about any chain store, but it's quite a bit more difficult for them to block the opening of the store for only one chain. No matter how unpopular they are. (And Walmart is, believe it or not, very popular. You get the opposite impression mainly because it's opponents are so vocal. Funded by the mom-and-pop businesses, of course.)