by Timothy Rutt
How to handle Walmart: Educate and protest? Or promote local alternatives? And will it do any good in the end?
Opponents of the proposed Walmart Neighborhood Market met Friday night at Webster’s Fine Stationers to organize and strategize about how to deal with the chain’s planned move into a long-vacant location at 2408 Lincoln Ave. in Altadena. Organizer Steve Lamb told the crowd, which numbered about 50, that it may not be possible to stop the retailer from opening a store, but they should proceed as if it were.
The group, which is still informal and doesn’t seem to have an official name, first met last week, shortly after Walmart announced it was coming to Altadena when contractor’s documents with the Walmart logo came to light.
Lamb said that there were four missions of the Walmart opponents:
- Keep Walmart from opening, a scenario that Lamb said “probably won’t happen -- but organize like it would”;
- Organize a community boycott;
- Organize as a community to support small businesses;
- Try to attract desirable businesses to Altadena.
Citing information from websites,news articles, and other research, the opponents mostly objected to a pattern they saw of Walmart hurting other, smaller retail businesses after they established a foothold. Also raising their ire were stories that Walmart was a low wage, non-union employer who did not deliver quality jobs when they opened up stores.
Lamb said that Walmart was moving into a building that was already zoned for retail, and had its conditional use permits, so there was no legal way to stop it. Appealing to the county Board of Supervisors won’t work either, Lamb said: “Realistically, the board of supervisors is not going to stop that at this point.”
This is even though the news came as a surprise to the supervisors: Lamb said that Altadena’s supervisor, Michael D. Antonovich, first heard that the Walmart market was moving in in an email from Lamb.
Besides an urge to protest, leaflet, and educate their friends and neighbors -- attendee Bernadette Giglio said, “I have a megaphone and I’m happy to use it “ -- there were also voices that wanted to have a more positive campaign, focusing on what existing Altadena businesses had to offer.
Elliot Gold said that many celebrities -- actors and musicians -- live in Altadena. It would be “interesting to take this whole thing and turn it around, to show why we shop in Altadena,” he said. “Why don’t we use it as an opportunity to talk about the positive side -- take these [celebrities] and show them shopping here.”
The group also talked about rumors of another, unspecified Walmart encroachment in Altadena: Lamb said that it was unlikely, but there were only two sites that might work: the “Calavaras crater” on Lake Avenue and Calavaras Street, which has the same owner as the Walmart building site; or the closed-down site at Washington and Altadena Drive.
In the meantime, they needed to “develop messaging,” according to Shawna Dawson, who will help develop a webpage for the movement at savealtadena.com (which currently just as a GoDaddy placeholder page). Ericka Lozano-Buhl will administer a Facebook page.
The group will reconvene next Friday at either Webster’s Fine Stationers or the Coffee Gallery (both Altadenablog sponsors). At that meeting they will also look at designs for yard signs and flyers, and screen the anti-Walmart film “The High Cost of Low Price.”
UPDATE 7/1/12: We're getting Station Fire-type traffic on the Walmart issue, which is straining our poor website provider. The provider limits comments on each post to 100 -- which we've exceeded in this post -- so I've edited out some of the more bickering, personal attacks to allow some good comments that got pushed out to come back. We've also closed comments on this, but we have a Sunday open thread you're free to contribute to!
