Wal-Mart plans stir emotions

Will it help or hurt Valley?

November 27, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON\Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - A crowd of pumped-up customers, armed with coupons and credit cards, stood outside the Wasilla Wal-Mart in the pre-dawn hours of Black Friday.

When the electronic doors finally rolled back at 5 a.m., one Wal-Mart employee said she saw customers running through the store trying to beat their neighbors to the lowest-priced deals in town.

This kind of homecoming celebration atmosphere continues to occur around the nation despite growing protests of those who decry Wal-Mart's labor practices, anti-union policies and overpowering competition to smaller local businesses. Wal-Mart takes its share of insults and lawsuits but still remains head and shoulders above the competition as the number-one retailer in the world. Through it all, it continues to build steam.

Now, with more than 4,000 stores worldwide and more opening and expanding each week, the company will rake in roughly $10 billion this year on nearly $300 billion in net sales.

Part of its unparalleled success lies in the fact that ideological protests don't always transfer into changed buying habits.

The lure of &#8220lowest prices in town” is often more powerful than any negative documentary film, questionable hiring practices or the thousands of protests groups which have cropped up around the country.

&#8220I can't resist a good deal, I guess,” said Palmer resident Joan Narsavich as she walked out of the Wasilla Wal-Mart Friday with a cart full of goodies.

Narsavich has an uneasy relationship with Wal-Mart. The deals are great but she said she thinks about the fact that Wal-Mart stores often change small communities and force local businesses to close.

On one hand, Narsavich said she opposes the possible opening of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Palmer, but she's still willing to drive a half-hour to the Wasilla store.

&#8220I hate to admit it,” she said. &#8220It doesn't sound very good, but I come because of all the prices and deals.”

Narsavich isn't alone in her conflicted relationship with the retail giant.

Wasilla resident Phyllis Vosch walked out of the store Friday with her own bundle of goods. &#8220I try to shop at smaller businesses and more local companies if I can,” Vosch said as she stood over her amply filled shopping cart.

Does she support a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Wasilla?

&#8220No, not really, because I think they buy in mass marketing and that drives out smaller businesses,” she said. &#8220But they do have things more inexpensive here and I have a larger family, so sometimes I do come here.”

Even those who oppose Wal-Mart's expansion into the Mat-Su find themselves shuffling through the narrow aisles and past the mountains of Wal-Mart merchandise.

Evie McNamee, a Palmer resident and member of the anti-Wal-Mart group, People for Palmer, admits she is drawn to the mega-store. &#8220I don't hate Wal-Mart,” she said earlier this year. &#8220I even shop at Wal-Mart, but I don't want it in Palmer.”

McNamee and other members of her group oppose a Palmer Wal-Mart because they are afraid of the competition and what the store might do to the small-town charm.

&#8220We have a Norman Rockwell feeling,” she said. &#8220And yet we could lose it within a year of Wal-Mart opening.”

Shopping patterns, however, speak louder than protest signs or petitions, and this summer Wal-Mart plans to expand its Wasilla store into a Wal-Mart Supercenter by adding 73,000 square feet, to include a full-blown grocery store. The city of Wasilla recently approved Wal-Mart's request for such a move.

Despite local outcry, Palmer may soon follow suit. Earlier this month, Wal-Mart purchased 24 acres in the city and so far has support from the city council to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter there.

Like many local governments, officials from both Wasilla and Palmer have touted the benefits of increased taxes, more jobs and public demand as reasons to welcome the corporate giant.

But a growing number of studies point to short-term benefits and long-term costs to welcoming a Wal-Mart into a community.

A 2005 study by the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education confirmed a number of earlier studies about the economic downside to a Wal-Mart neighbor.

The Berkeley researchers concluded after the five-year study that Wal-Mart displaced better-paying jobs by pressuring retailers to reduce wages in both rural and urban areas. &#8220The overall earnings effect of Wal-Mart was strongly negative, both in terms of average earnings per worker and total take-home pay of the work force,” the study stated.

On the other hand, it cautions local governments against knee-jerk restrictions, which could backfire and cause local residents to drive to the next town to shop at a Wal-Mart.

The Berkeley study affirms earlier studies by Wal-Mart researchers such as Kenneth Stone who found that cities that ban Wal-Marts often lose sales-tax revenue to neighboring towns in the short run. Over the long haul, however, sales taxes eventually decrease even in Wal-Mart towns because competing businesses are forced to cut back or close.

&#8220[Increased sales tax and employment] are worthy goals,” the Berkeley study concluded of towns that welcome Wal-Mart, &#8220but many times, the net increases are minimal as the new big box stores merely capture sales from existing businesses in the area.”

Contact Joel Davidson at 352-2266 or joel.davidson@

frontiersman.com.