Posted on 01/16/2016 1:48:41 AM PST by Zakeet
Walmart abruptly announced Friday that it was abandoning a promise to build stores in Washington’s poorest neighborhoods, an agreement that had been key to the deal allowing the retailer to begin operating in the nation’s capital.
[Snip]
"I'm blood mad," D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said at a Friday news conference.
"It's an outrage," said former mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), who in 2013 completed the handshake deal for the stores. "This is devastating and disrespectful to the residents of the East End of the District of Columbia."
[Snip ... buried toward the bottom of a long article]
[Council member Jack Evans] said that, behind closed doors, Walmart officials were more frank about the reasons the company was downsizing. He said the company cited the District's rising minimum wage, now at $11.50 an hour and possibly going to $15 an hour if a proposed ballot measure is successful in November. He also said a proposal for legislation requiring D.C. employers to pay into a fund for family and medical leave for employees, and another effort to require a minimum amount of hours for hourly workers were compounding costs and concerns for the retailer.
"They were saying, 'How are we going to run the three stores we have, let alone build two more?'" Evans said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“and has more “eye in the sky” cameras than a Vegas casino.”
I have never been in any Walmart store where nearly every square foot of floorspace wasn’t covered by cameras.
The camera systems are so good that they can identify which customer paid with a 50 or 100 dollar bill, and which bill came from which customer. (note: Post offices do the same thing). Walmart fights every slip and fall suit that gets ginned up, and they do identify serial shoplifters.
Remember how quickly they showed video of the 9-11 terrorists buying the razor knives used in the hijackings? Their camera systems and software were good then, but far more advanced today.
Well, you may be upset, but your hypocrisy is showing when you didn’t utter a peep about the Healthcare Act and how many lives that law is financially breaking.
And W-Mart is probably closing most of its “hit list” stores in similar neighborhoods because of the overhead of doing business in a ghetto where nobody respects anyone else’s property...Them poor libtards doing the complaining think they can make a old and diseased whore attractive by splashing on some perfume and covering the sores with old Band Aids...
Well, the government made banks open branches where there was no chance of making a profit and then forced them to make bad loans. So using this logic, the government should force Walmart to open a store, accept high shoplifting and security costs (not to mention lawsuits), and give away some free stuff. Not a fan of Walmart but, having lived in the DC area, fully support their decision.
A Walmart giving entry level wages above the minimum wage is not unheard of. In Williston, ND during the oil boom starting wages were about $17 per hour and McDonalds $18.
Now there is a huge difference the libs will never figure out. Williston, like many red state cities, have free enterprise economies. The people enjoy max freedom. They get to arm themselves. Jobs are not stifled. They are not crime infested toilets packed with freeloaders.
One good reason a DC Walmart could never pay above minimum, is I’m certain they have to leave some slack for theft, vandalism, flash robberies or a riotous complete burnout. Things people will never find happening in a Williston type city.
you are bashing the best run company in the country. They know more about how to develop and run a business than you can grasp with the mind you have been given
Walmart has transformed the way business is done from the retail check out all the way to the floors of the factories producing the merchandise.
That group doesn’t show much diversity.
They act like Walmart is a Federal employment department. Maybe they are almost right...
The major reason is the huge amounts of shoplifting in “culturally enriched” areas make these stores unprofitable.
That was pretty much my opinion when I read the article. Lib politicians just don’t get it. It takes them time to ruin a good thing. Until the point where OPM (Other People’s Money) runs out, they have fun playing Santa Claus. Sadly, the fact that they CAN get away with it for awhile reinforces their false beliefs that there really is such a thing as something for nothing. Even worse, they will take the rest of us down with them, but most conservatives I know can make a living in the real world. It will be tough, but more of us will make it.
Walmart is part retailer and part real estate company. They will often buy a parcel of land and build a store with a long term plan to sell it off.
LOL. That's funny. FWIW, Wal-Mart is the biggest beneficiary of EBT.
Privately-owned businesses can’t operate at a loss the way the federal government can.
The compassionate left hates Wal-mart, and seldom miss an opportunity to make fun of the poor lowlife schlubs who shop there.
Comments at the Compost are running about 30/1 realist.
The anti-Walmart “Gentry” of DC spent so many years fighting the building of ‘down-scale’ Walmart stores that the majority of low income DC residents could afford, and would also provide jobs, are reaping their “reward.” And it also shows that the great business climate of their hero, savior & diety, bh0, is a lie.
“My guess is one of the criteria on store selection for closing would be those that could be prone to rioting and looting and probably already suffering inventory slippage and unionization efforts.”
Inventory slippage is a really good point - I’m sure there no shortage of inside work, and the ones from outside cannot even be confronted these days without risking being shot, or sued.
Conditions are MUCH WORSE than 5 to 10 years ago when these places opened...and now the BLM chickens are comin’ home to roost.
Given the dire economic conditions, Wally World decided it couldn’t justify several stores built for PC reasons when they knew there was a good chance the stores would receive the Ferguson, MO treatment?
Walmart is not closing the 2 stores in question, it is not BUILDING them. the DC criers should remember how hard they fought against wanting them to be built in the first place.
The only honest voices among the ‘criers’ are the folks in the immediate areas who needed the Walmarts to provide good and JOBS and are lamenting losing both.
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