"We kept Wal-Mart out of our town!"

[HeyBub]

"[PLAINFIELD, Penn] Walt Neidlinger spent years trying to keep a Wal-Mart-anchored shopping complex from being built...

"The traffic would have been suffocating for their little community, neighbors argued, so when the massive retailer and its partners packed up their plans and left ... Neidlinger was ecstatic. He figured he'd wait for the next plan to come along and remembers thinking, 'What could be worse than Wal-Mart?'

"Over the past year, Neidlinger says, he's gotten an answer: RPM Recycling -- the metal-shredding plant on the same land -- causes daily noise that sounds like a freight train rumbling down the street, and frequent explosions that shake his walls."

[RobertPatrick]

"HeyBub" wrote in news:N6KdnVbAo5rcejTVnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

Should have let WalMart in.

[Jim Redelfs]

'What could be worse than Wal-Mart?'

Proving yet again: Be careful. You might get what you're asking for.

It's a lead pipe cinch that Walmart would NOT have permitted a recycling plant to be built next door.

All those jobs, all that tax base - gone. (Never was.) Too bad.

JR

[HeyBub]

Good point. The recycling plant has, what, fifty workers compared to 200 for Walmart. And the recycling plant generates zero sales tax dollars for the city. Moreover, the property tax has to go down in the neighborhood due to the collapse in home value by being next to a noise maker.

But Walmart's not there. To some, it's an even trade.

[Samantha Hill - remove TRASH t]

Actually, Walmarts don't contribute a lot in taxes because they strategically plan so much of their floor space to their grocery department, for which they pay no taxes.

[mm]

I'm no fan of walmart, but that doesn't make sense.

I've been to Walmart, and plenty of their floorspace is NOT groceries.

70 or 80 percent, maybe more.

Whatever groceries people buy at walmart, if there were no walmart, they'd buy it somewhere else. The total amount of groceries sold doesn't vary that much in an area, because everyone eats.

[Marina]

Samantha Hill - remove TRASH to reply wrote in news:48aa44de$0$17230$ [e-mail]:

We have a Super Wal-Mart about 1 mile away. Half the building seems to be groceries. They have a whole bank of gas pumps, maybe 10 or 12 of them. The gas is the cheapest around here. I used to go there, but no more. The customers are too trashy. If i need something from Wal-Mart then i order online. I'll go there for gas, but only when it's not too busy, which is almost all the time.

[Wayne Boatwright]

On Mon 18 Aug 2008 09:29:11p, Marina told us...

I can't afford to think "global ecomony" or even "local economy" when I need to make every single penny count. Wal-Mart generally has the best prices on almost anything I need to buy. I really can't afford to not shop there. If I find good specials at other stores, then I go to those stores, but inevitably I end up at Wal-Mart for a lot of my shopping.

I agree with you about the typical customers. I make it a point to shop at times where there is a minimum number of shoppers, either extremely early or extremely late.

[mm]

And another thing: What do you mean by strategically? That usually refers to placing things where they'll be seen, like out the checkout counter? Floor space percentages are determined by what they think the market is.

(I actually don't like walmart and I only go there rarely when I can't find what I want anywhere else.)

So even if half the building is groceries, you have to add to the half that isn't groceries all the sales of gasoline, ahnd it sounds like there are plenty.

[Dave Bugg]

In which locale is that? You're saying that grocery stores don't pay property taxes? Never heard that one before.

[Bob]

Most likely the OP was referring to sales tax which is not levied on food in some states

[rochacha]

Bob wrote in news:hZsqk.18640$ [e-mail]:

Move to NY.....you pay tax on top of tax on top of tax......forever.

[Dave Bugg]

True. But there are many other taxes besides what's missed on food :-)

[Don Klipstein]

As I hear it, they also often move in when getting a break from local taxes that other businesses would have to pay in their place.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

Watch out for WM having WM-specific versions of merchandise, such as lighter weight version of "personal size" frozen pizzas of a specific brand and censored CDs.

I have yet to verify personally these accusations that I have seen, after seeing a Usenet thread where WM was accused (as they often have been) of making workers work off-the-clock and a majority of responses on WM's side appeared to me to defend WM by "blaming the victims" as opposed to claiming that WM did not do such. As in it's been quite a few years since I bought anything from them.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

It appears to me that there is largely lack of municipal taxation of gasoline either going in or out of the retailer in municipalities that are much less taxing than Philadelphia.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Edwin Pawlowski]

"Samantha Hill - remove TRASH to reply" wrote in message

They pay taxes here. Never heard of such an exemption.

[Kurt Ullman]

Nah. They usually get the same tax incentives that are available for any business. They are just a little more agressive in asking for them than some others.

[George]

Not really, at least in my state Walmart has the special hotline to get the government to pick our pockets to pay for ultradeluxe corporate welfare. They get free building sites, free infrastructure etc and a nine year tax exemption. When the nine year tax exemption is running out wally calls the hotline so they can move across the street to restart the nine year tax exemption. In my area we are now moving the third wally all of 1/8 of a mile. We pretty much had to level a mountain for them. All this because they "create jobs"...

Contrast this with someone I know who has a good business plan and is growing in leaps and bounds and is mostly constrained by funding. He actually creates real jobs with actual benefits (Walmart gives instructions on how to sign up for welfare and free medical) and he can't even get a reduced rate loan to help move to a new building. And this is by no means an unusual case.

[PanHandler]

At minimum wage.