Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
Posted on 03/19/2005 11:45:17 AM PST by traumer
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. tries to plant dozens of new supercenters in California, lawyers aligned with a variety of opposition groups are using California's tough environmental laws to stall the nation's largest retailer.
A handful of lawyers have sued more than 30 cities that approved the 200,000-square-foot combination grocery and department stores, claiming local officials hungry for sales taxes have miscalculated their environmental consequences.
In many cases, the suits have been filed on behalf of obscure, often secretive community groups. Some have been backed by labor unions leading an anti-Wal-Mart fight in California, while others have few apparent sources of money.
They're delaying the opening of some stores by months or years and slowing Wal-Mart's plan to build up to 40 new supercenters in a state that's one of the company's few major U.S. growth opportunities. The suits also come at a time when the unions representing grocery store workers, primary the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Wal-Mart's competitors are worried about the effects of the discounters in California.
The suits haven't stopped the company from opening any stores, said Peter Kanelos, a company spokesman. "All they've done is delay the stores."
At least seven attorneys throughout California have filed lawsuits that claim the new stores violate the California Environmental Quality Act, a strict 1970 law signed by former Gov. Ronald Reagan (news - web sites). The law, frequently used by development opponents in California to force delays, drive up costs and discourage developers, has tougher requirements for analyzing environmental impacts than most other states in which Wal-Mart operates.
While not all the lawsuits filed on behalf of groups like Maintain Our Desert Environment, Communities Against Blight and Citizens for Sensible Traffic have prevailed, many other Wal-Marts approved by California cities are tied up in the lawsuits.
While Texas has more than 200 and Florida more than 100, California has only three of Wal-Mart's 1,700 supercenters nationwide. Another three are under construction in California.
Opponents' "whole purpose is to delay, delay, delay, cause turmoil and hope to get Wal-Mart go away," said Craig N. Beardsley, a Bakersfield lawyer who represents one of California's biggest developers.
His client, Castle & Cooke Inc., saw its local Wal-Mart supercenter halted last year during construction. Its four blank walls and roof now stand lifeless next to other thriving newly opened stores.
"Maybe two years from now we will build a store," Beardsley said.
The Fifth District Court of Appeal in Bakersfield ruled Dec. 13 against Wal-Mart and the developers, saying Bakersfield failed to analyze potential physical decay citywide as two Wal-Mart supercenters caused other businesses to close and leave shopping centers vacant.
The court's first-of-its-kind ruling on physical decay has thrown up even higher environmental hurdles for California cities considering Wal-Mart supercenters. Cities that once considered effects on wildlife and air quality must now study a ripple of potential economic effects as well and determine if a new supercenter is worth vacant buildings elsewhere. The three appellate judges ruled that examples of urban decay from other cities and states are also valid considerations for a California city analyzing a supercenter project.
"It makes it tougher to go through the whole environmental review process" and get approval from cities, said Walnut Creek attorney Stephen Kostka, an environmental law specialist who called the ruling an "atomic bomb" for shopping center developers.
But it's also encouraged opponents of Wal-Mart supercenters in other states, said Stockton attorney Steve Herum, who challenged the two Bakersfield supercenters and eight others.
Beardsley and Wal-Mart say such lawsuits in California are being backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which is fighting Wal-Mart's entry into the state's grocery market and fearing it will put downward pressure on wages and put stores where its members work out of business.
"No one will admit anything and I couldn't swear on a stack of bibles that that's the way it is," Beardsley said. "But we all believe that to be true."
Beardsley also cited other grocery chains as suspects, primarily Modesto, Calif.-based Save Mart. A company spokeswoman had no immediate comment to questions about whether the company had any role in the lawsuits.
Last year, rival supermarket chains locked out union workers in Southern California as they attempted to negotiate new contracts that would allow the companies to better compete against Wal-Mart's lower wages. That prompted a 4 1/2-month strike that caused hundreds of millions of losses for the grocers.
The UFCW, a 1.4 million-member union of grocery store workers, is one of Wal-Mart's biggest foes nationally, claiming that nonunion supercenters threaten their jobs. The union's Web sites are filled with anti-Wal-Mart sentiment and the union's members show up at California's city halls to oppose supercenter plans.
Union spokeswoman Jill Cashen acknowledged the union backed "four or five lawsuits in California" but said there are another 25 or 30 suits in which UFCW isn't involved. "The fact is there are many people in every community who are concerned about their expansion. We're certainly not alone. We're part of a broader movement of people from lots of different walks of life and motivations."
Typically, California's anti-supercenter lawsuits are filed on behalf of a local community group that often doesn't disclose who belongs or where it gets its funding for the court challenge.
"Right now some of the people in this group want to remain anonymous," said Brad Morgan, a businessman in Selma who heads the anti-Wal-Mart group, Save Our Selma.
Herum, whose firm has handled cases involving 10 Wal-Mart supercenters, declined to say who pays for the suits and that he's never represented a union in 25 years of practicing law.
But "if my interests happen to align with the labor union so what?" Herum said, adding that supercenters have potential to "destroy the economic future of the Central Valley."
Wal-Mart, Herum said, is just attacking its opponents because it can't win in court.
Company spokesman Kanelos disagreed, saying the company respects California law and its legitimate use.
"Our concern is that there is no one watching the abuse of CEQA by interest groups whose interest in environmental protection is limited to their own political agenda," Kanelos said.
"A handful of lawyers... "
/s
Judicial tyranny out of control as usual.
This worked in Vermont not only with Wal-mart but also with the Home Depot. Walmart finally gave up and opened a store in New Hampshire where many Vermont resident are willing to go since NH does not have a sales tax.
"A handful of lawyers... "
...at the bottom of the ocean...is a good start! :)
Union thugs. Let the people decide whether or not they want to buy the stuff Walmart sells.
ping
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
Have you shopped in a union controlled So Cal grocery store? The prices for toothpaste, deoderant, and a lot of other stuff is twice or three times as much.
I can't wait for the Wal Mart Supercenter to open in Palmdale.
pinging
"Have you shopped in a union controlled So Cal grocery store? The prices for toothpaste, deoderant, and a lot of other stuff is twice or three times as much.
I can't wait for the Wal Mart Supercenter to open in Palmdale."
I may have to drive to Palmdale to go to your Supercenter, since the one here in Bakersfield is still being blocked.
The only time I shopped in the union-controlled grocery stores here was during the strike - to show support for the stores. They are indeed way too pricey!
I'm afraid I will never understand this one. People are not going to buy much more underwear or groceries because a WalMart moves in, they will simply shift some of their purchases from other stores to the WalMart, changing the source of the revenue but not the amount of revenue.
If anything, since WalMart normally charges less than other stores, you could expect sales tax revenues to go down somewhat.
Although perhaps people would buy more stuff if the prices for each item are lower, and I guess a municipality that has a WalMart could divert revenue from a neighboring one that doesn't.
How?
It's difficult to see where the liberals have any sort of consistent philosophy behind their actions, unless it is a communist philosophy. They don't like any big business, but they like big government. They use the legal process to nullify the legal process. They constantly talk about the rights of this group or that, while undermining at every turn the rights of the individual. It is these home-grown liberals that are the biggest threat ever to face the American way of life. Scratch a Democrat and you'll uncover a liberal. They are not to be trusted in the slightest degree.
"The Fifth District Court of Appeal in Bakersfield ruled Dec. 13 against Wal-Mart and the developers, saying Bakersfield failed to analyze potential physical decay citywide as two Wal-Mart supercenters caused other businesses to close and leave shopping centers vacant."
Now this court has said normal economic forces are to be retarded because some inefficient stores may go out of business and that might have an environmental impact. This is a recipe for stalling and crippling all competitive economic development. When one business model takes over in a free economy, other business models fade or adapt. That what keeps us prosperous. It's just like saying an auto manufacturing plant could not be built without a prior study of the environmental impact of closing down the horse barns and buggy whip manufacturers.
Without any real legislative authority, this court has arrogated to itself the unbridled, unlegislated power to be the California Gosplan. The impact is a price rise for everybody, especially the poor, and the loss of thousands of high paying construction jobs.
I agree that it's outrageous - but sometimes these folks hand you the weapons to use against them. I would suggest that if this is the way they want to play (using environmental permitting and impact assessment as a selective hurdle to keep Wal Mart out of town) then fine. Use environmental impact considerations to stop illegal immigrants from driving their oil-burning, clap trap vehicles on California highways while emitting several hundred thousand times the ppm pollution levels of a newer, well maintained auto. Next - look to Hollywood and shut down film-making where special effects typically consist of the burning of hundreds of gallons of gasoline, or it's equivalent. This in the Los Angeles basin where you can't buy lighter fluid for your charcoal grill due to the impact of evaporative emissions. I guarantee the studios do not treat special effects fires as point sources for emissions - maybe it's time to put their tit in the same wringer they expect all of the rest of us to suffer.
Nope, I don't live in SoCal but did at one time. I guess they need WalMart there when mortgage for a 1200-square-foot bungalow runs over quarter million.
Congrats on finally getting a Super Center. I hope it doesn't decimate the econony and availability of choice in your city the way it did in my hometown. Its probably not an issue in Burbank, though, but in the small rural cities it bites. One grocery store per 22,000 people, check-out lines going back to the meat department, no difference in the prices, but hell, its WalMart, right?
Notice how all these Cali enviro laws do nothing but allow for special interest groups to take over the entire system.
Yep why bother competing when you can sue to stop your competition?
" It's just like saying an auto manufacturing plant could not be built without a prior study of the environmental impact of closing down the horse barns and buggy whip manufacturers."
I think if automobiles were being invented today, they would come out in China or someplace like that. Too many entrenched special interests, and regulations here to deal with.
"The impact is a price rise for everybody, especially the poor"
Yep, someone who is in a connected union like the port workers or electricity makes a lot of money, tripling the price of toothpaste doesn't matter to them. A poor family on the other hand..
For my part, I'm eagerly awaiting the opening of one or more SuperCenters:
1. I welcome more 24-hour stores up here (right now we have only one 24-hour food store that I know of).
2. I'm a night person, and I frankly would welcome the opportunity to shop in the middle of the night, when hopefully there would be many fewer screaming children in the store. (I have nothing against kids, but it seems that very few parents will shush their kids, and instead allow them to run around like maniacs, throw merchandise around, and just generally scream their heads off.)
Just my two cents.
That superstore in Lancaster will be right across from a high school in what is now a rural area and the rural town of Quartz Hill. The quality of life will definitely be damaged.
It is a shame when there are plenty of Wal-Mart’s near by, and the rural community opposes it. The city of Lancaster that controlls that corner wants the tax revenue, Quartz Hill be dammed. An example of corporate and city greed.
I don’t care for their food sections, by and large, but I do buy household supplies there (paper goods, dishwasher, dish, laundry detergents, sanitary supplies, etc.), some vitamins, and other stuff on the cheap. Yes, a lot of it may be from China... but since I got a 30% pay cut a few years ago, every dollar I can save helps!
Well, the left wingers have no use for either, especially the roll-on or spray stuff, so they aren't bothered. Ask Michael Moore.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.