City Council Tells Walmart To Stop Donating Money To NYC Charities

The Gothamist ^ | 06/05/2014

[SeekAndFind]

Walmart, bastion of cheap patio furniture, Mickey Mouse Dolman t-shirts and financially abused workers, has been doing its best to weasel its way into NYC for a while now. And like any good corporation hellbent on destroying the very fabric of the so-called American Dream, it looks like Walmart's trying to curry favor with New Yorkers by funneling cash into charitable funds—but the City Council smells a rat, and they've told the retailer to back off.

According to the Post, 26 of the Council's 51 members have penned an open letter to Walmart and the Walton Family Foundation demanding they keep their "toxic money" out of the city. "We know how desperate you are to find a foothold in New York City to buy influence and support here,” the letter reportedly reads. “Stop spending your dangerous dollars in our city. That’s right: this is a cease-and-desist letter.”

Apparently, the keepers of Walmart's financial treasure chest have been handing millions of dollars to local charities, with recent beneficiaries including the New York Women’s Foundation and HIV/AIDS non-profit Bailey House. The ever-controversial charter school programs have also been on the receiving end of Walmart cash, which can't possibly sit well with city elected officials. Plus, the charity money comes tainted with the blood of a million mom-and-pop shops, and today City Council Members like Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito gathered on the steps of City Hall, decrying the corporation and ripping up mock Walton Family Foundation checks cut to the city.

CM Barron says to Walmart, you are against our progressive values, "you are not coming into New York City!" pic.twitter.com/NCdOQryM7v— Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) June 4, 2014

Here's the full text of the letter below:

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

This is what I learned back in 1962 from a High School Teacher.

Small towns have mom and pop stores everywhere. Two dime stores, two drug stores, two shoe stores ect. This is to show that there is no monopoly and no price fixing to keep prices high.
HOWEVER, the same stores have under the table handshake deals not to undercut each other in price so they can keep the prices high. The City Councils know this and keep competing business out of town and get their cut.

That is what the teacher said. A few years later some upstart company named WALMART opened outside the city limits and the people found they were being taken to the cleaners by the Mom and Pop stores.

Another thing that drove small town businesses out was...

3rd Salesman: Why it’s the Model T Ford made the trouble, made the people wanna go, wanna get, wanna get up and go
seven eight , nine, ten, twelve, fourteen, twent-two, twenty-three mile to the county seat
1st Salesman: Yes sir, yes sir
3rd Salesman: Who’s gonna patronize a little bitty two by four kinda store anymore?

When the State Highway Department improved the very dangerous roads (They cut off the very dangerous “DEAD MAN’S CURVE” years ago) to the bigger cities by 4 lanes people went to the bigger stores in larger towns.