Will Wal-Mart Roll Back In to NYC?

I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity consumer! Because I grew up in the burbs, I like the idea of both the convenience of a Wal-Mart and the friendly familiarity of the mom and pop shops. But having either just for havings sake doesn't work for me.

I refuse to shop in a small shop if the customer service sucks, or if the merchandise is second-rate. I'll pay a little more at the register if I get a friendly smile and a nice hello.

On the other hand, I won't head to a superstore if it takes me an hour and a half on the train to get there. Yes there are Kmarts and Home Depots, Targets and Whole Foods in the city, but none are anywhere near my house so I don't go to any of them.

As a consumer, I have the right to spend my money where I please...and generally it goes to the place where I get the best service. That being said, convenience and time-saved is a real issue here in the city. If I had my choice (like I did when I lived in the burbs) I'd frequent both a nearby Wal-mart late at night for emergency tampons AND the little mom and pop shop because the chubby cat who sits in the doorway always lets me pet her and the store owner always smiles and says hello even though I know he doesn't speak English that well.

A person is not EVIL because they need to save time or to combine a days worth of shopping into one stop at a Super Wal-Mart. Neither is a person a SAINT for eating nearly-expired food or half-wilted fruit to support a corner store whose owner doesn't re-invest funds back into his or her community or who'd rather finish their phone call rather than greet you when you come to the register. Lets stop insulting one another. Its pointless.

This has got to be in the top ten most entertaining Gothamist donnybrooks I've ever read.

i wonder if the tinfoil hat libertarians realize that those regulations would only apply to massive corporations, and not the little guys they pretend to give a shit about

the free market is great...until it's your job. it's all those liberals keeping sugar tariffs high and corn subsidies up so we can keep propping up the "american farmer", not those vaunted champions of the free market, the republican party

We need the big discounters back on 14th st. I miss the low brow Union Square of yore...

"I miss the low brow Union Square of yore..."

me too

The resurrection of the old "John's Bargain Stores" af ancient Brooklyn would be a welcome relief. Come to think of it, bring back Odd-lots, Job-lots, Radio Row and the great places on west Canal where you could find just about anything. Damn, I'm feeling old.

I'll take 'em in Little Neck.

www.forgotten-ny.com

I'm just wondering where the heck they'd be able to find enough space for a Wal-Mart in Manhattan if they're aiming for all five boroughs. If it's small, it won't be a real Wal-Mart. But not even they can afford 100,000 square feet in Manhattan, and I think that's only half the size of a average Supercenter.

They can open up in one of those "stumps" planned at WTC.

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/community/

walmart employs more people than the US Army...stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

dear god - what are you people's THREADCOUNTS?!

Mall Wart Your exclusive source for cheap plastic shit

jesus christ, people, there's more to life than saving a few dollars on crappy ice cream and bulk toilet paper. please read up on walmart's business practices. those $2 you're saving aren't worth. and i'm a poor, so money is an issue for me, but not enough to compromise my morals to praise such a heinous business.

Who are you to decide that $2 savings isn't worth it, or any savings, for that matter? How can you possibly make those judgment calls about an entire population's finances?

If you don't want to "compromise your morals"...don't shop there. Welcome to America!

i suppose you libertarians would want to eliminate all business regulation - see where that gets you. seriously, dude, get out your little myopic bubble.

I am going to make a judgment call here and say that you are amongst those who believe in a woman's right to choose (and before you jump to conclusions, as am I). Why is it that you are able to espouse this anti-Wal-Mart nonsense framed in terms of morality (i.e.- I think Wal-Mart is evil and everyone else should, too) but you are (potentially) uncomfortable with the idea of a stranger deciding what a woman can do with her uterus? Aren't both these arguments framed in morality...you just like your argument framed in morality better, so it's ok?

It is foolish to assume that you know best what I should do with my 2 dollars...just as it is foolish (in my opinion) for a stranger to decide what is best to do with my unborn baby or what have you. Give it a rest maybe, and just don't shop there.

PS- I am not dude and I am certainly no libertarian.

And it's not just two dollars -- it's two dollars per item. If I drop $250 bucks at Target in Jersey you can bet that the same combination of napkins, soap, garbage bags, etc. at Duane Reade or Gristedes would cost close to $400.

I'd pose the same argument at you. We had plenty of laws on the books and look where it got us...

It's not new laws or better regulation that the issue; it's regulation in itself that's the issue. You can't stop greedy behavior, you just have to let it destruct itself on its own. Fraud is not a viable business plan.

Anyway, saving $2 here and there matters. It's the same tired shit the politicians in Albany throw at us with the sales tax. Eventually the tax will be 25% using the logic of "What's another dollar here or there?" Add up all the increases to the countless taxes, and we're talking thousands of bucks.

Exactly...and even *if* 2 dollars "didn't matter"...it is my two dollars to do with what I choose-- not anyone else's. And if I want to buy cheap bulk toilet paper with it, why in the hell can't I do it in NYC?!!

i'd have to argue bad regulation, not just regulation, is the issue. for example, what would have happened if we never had anti-trust laws? btw, all greed does not self-destruct. if only it did.

also, south east asian and south asian epz's are walmart's best friends. like i already said, i don't make a lot of money, and i live in nyc. i know what difference $2 means, but i also know what supporting bad business practices means. quite frankly $2 is not enough to make it ignore that.

Spare me the bleeding heart liberal douchebag commentary. People just want low prices wherever they can find them, and that is what Wal Mart provides. Dont hate Sam Walton b/c he was a better business man that everyone else. Wal Mart started as one store too.

Ha your EPI group is full of liberals..including the head of the UAW..how is that working out? Your workers make crappy cars that nobody wants to buy. Tons of other union clowns and Robert Reich to boot. Thankfully unions are finished, nobody works for one anymore, Reagan broke those assholes and they have never recovered.

real patriots are made in china! good call.

Except the unions representing the city workers, with their incredible retire-early-get-great-benefits packages, will be what ultimately bankrupts New York City.

There is no such thing as bankruptcy for a city govt, only refusal to raise taxes. There is nothing illegal with a 40% sales tax or a property tax increase. Remember folks, property can't get up and walk away.

The arrival of Walmart would be the final nail in the coffin for new york city. And the death of one of the last truly great metropolis' culture would be a loss historic, and truly regrettable. We shouldn't let this happen. Down with Walmart, down with bloomberg, send the midwesterners back from whence they came.

I was born and raised here and would love to see Walmart set up shop here...

Wait!! If you figure out a way to get all us 'outsiders' out of NYC, can we at least make it a fair trade? I'd love to see all the New Yorkers and snowbirds who currently live in my home state of Florida pack up and move back up here. I'm tired of you murdering the natural eco-systems of my state so you can build ever-taller condo high-rises that cause the rapid erosion of our white quartz sand beaches. I'll take Destin over Coney Island any day!

Sure, let's send all the people who weren't born in New York City back home. Then all we'd have is a bunch of whiny NIMBYs complaining about the "death of their culture."

I don't know how the idea of wal-mart being cheap came to be. I went in there upstate and shit that was in the 99Cent stores here was going for twenty bucks there.

While I loathe WalMart, I think I loathe Reverend Billy more. Both should stay out of NYC.

How is Wal-mart any better or worse to you people then Target or K-Mart, of which our city has several. How is Target any more than a trendier version of Wal-Mart? I don't here anyone bellyaching about Target, or even the much less cool K-Mart. Do you think Target workers get paid a "living wage"? Do you think K-Mart workers are overjoyed with their plentiful and quality health insurance options? In a time where there are so many unemployed New Yorkers, you would think that some people might jump at the opportunity to employ some of them?

Checkmate. Target is nothing more than an upscale/premium Walmart. K-Mart I'm not sure where to put.

Shouldn't the debate really be, will this be a Walmart or a Super Walmart (with supermarket)?

Perhaps an Aldi should come to NYC and show a Keyfood/Met/Ctown a few things....

Wal-Mart "does more business than Target, Home Depot, Sears, Kmart, Safeway, and Kroger combined. It employs more than 1.5 million workers around the globe, making Wal-Mart the largest private employer in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. It imports more goods from China than either the United Kingdom or Russia. Its sales will probably top a trillion dollars per year within the decade."

http://www.dsausa.org/lowwage/walmart/walmart.html

--Nelson Lichtenstein teaches U.S. Labor History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

So the difference is that Wal-Mart is a more successful and larger business than Target? In terms of wages and healthcare (common Wal-mart complaints) there is no difference. That seems like a pretty arbitrary objection...Wal-Mart is somehow big enough to complain about, but since Target and other high-paying jobs such as Sears aren't QUITE as large, they get by paying people crappy wages? That doesn't quite make sense to me.

before you decide to become a wally-world cheerleader you should read up on how the sheer buying power of wal-mart effects the prices and quality of manufacturers goods. this race to the bottom is a cascading effect that is detrimental to many areas of our national and global economy.

Before you decide to assume that I know nothing about "wally world" perhaps you should consider that you know absolutely nothing about me. Surely I am not as enlightened as you, the Wally World downer, but I, too, can read the Wal-Mart hate.

How is Wal-Mart "detrimental"? How would it be a disaster to employees hundreds of New Yorkers in the midst of a recession? How is NO JOB better than A JOB? Tell me, if you go to Wal-Mart to buy a 30 dollar dresser, do you think you are especially concerned with the quality of that particular good, or do you think you just want a damn dresser?

Perhaps we should allow people to consider for themselves whether or not the choice to shop at Wal-Mart is one they would like to make for themselves, rather than bemoaning the horror that is Wal-Mart while allowing Targets to go up in the Bronx and Queens..K-Mart in Manhattan...no one cares that these places exist. Because they can get cheap stuff minus the Wal-Mart guilt. Tell me you don't shop at Target because they don't pay their workers enough, and never have...

your anger is palpable, but i will still try to explain because your personal history has little to do with this discussion.

we used to make things here in the U.S., quality things that would last. you seem to be espousing a school of thought that a $30 dresser is better than say, a $500 dresser made here. you are wrong. and this disposable consumerist attitude contributes to our huge landfills plus other environmental and economic consequences of making things on one side of the world to be purchased on the other. a $30 dresser is false economy, in the sense that some poor schlub in china is getting paid squat so an american can have cheap goods. meanwhile a quality job that was here is now gone. if people actually thought about the goods that they buy they may realize they need less, and the things they have may mean more as a consequence (remember heirlooms?). wal-mart and the businesses of their ilk (including target which you seem to have such a visceral hatred for) encourage this form of unthinking consumption.

i support local production and local consumption. wal-mart negates that possibility. end.

And I don't hate Target, I actually happen to like Target quite a bit. I'm not sure what gave you that impression. My point about Target was that they don't pay people any better than Wal-Mart does, and no one seems too concerned there are Targets here. They still make cheap stuff at the expense of others overseas, etc. I was simply pointing this incongruity out.

Who says I am angry? Who said anything about my personal history anyway? I was just asking a question, and I just like Wal-Mart and want to be able to shop there where I live instead of on Long Island.

A 30 dollar dresser is better than a 500 dollar dresser, to me at least. A dresser is really a box that holds my underwear. I am ok with it being a wooden box and nothing more, nothing less. I don't need it to end world hunger and bring peace in the Middle East, just have drawers. To that end, why in the hell would anyone need a 500 dollar dresser in the first place?

I appreciate your attempts to explain why it is the Wal-Mart is such an atrocity, but is it impossible to be ok with the fact that some people value different things than you do? You are worried about the Chinese guy but maybe some people just want a place to stick their underwear. No?

The irony of Christine Quinn bemoaning the practice of "preying on small business" is a little hard to take.

On last item on Quinn. Quinn is compromise and she can't do anyting for us but sell us all out. Quinn shuns gay causes to gather non-gay votes, none of her campaign literature has her partner. People are mislead that Quinn has the power to bring marriage quality but in fact not only doesn't she have the power but she hinders marriage equality. Quin is so embedded with the same politicians that won't permit equality and all her back door dealings and slush funds have compromised her. We need someone clean and new as Yetta Kurland. she is so Smart and Tough. she won't back down and will stand up for the city. She is a civil rights attorny and educator. She has her own school and law practice and has been endorsed by independent progressive groups. Please vote for her. These groups are endorsing her for power but are compromising their own mission. We all know that Quinn has been in bed with the real developers. Most of her contributions are from real developers.

Real estate developers would actually LOVE Walmart to come in and lease up a ton of their vacant space, so your point = fail.

Wrong, Real developers have shut down Barnes&noble at Chelsea and Virgin Records at Union Square and other stores. Real developers want HIGH RENTS and Wal-mart is not going to pay that High rent. Quinn is in bed with the real developers in her district-west village, clinton hill and chelsea as well as other zones. Look at how she privatizes the High Line and received lots of contribution from them in return. She displaced a lot of small businesses including Joe Jr. Cafe and tossed out long time residents and now we have tourist living in their apartments. SHAME

but real estate controls everything in the end.

Virgin pays only $54 per square foot when the market rent in the area is about $700, Mathrani said

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSN0341760520080603

That article is from over a year ago, before the economy truly went down the toilet. Right now commercial real estate developers are facing a crash maybe even more severe than the residential market...they borrowed heavily thinking they could break even off the rent and turn a profit in the long term. Now their loans and bonds are coming due while they're not getting ANY rent at many of the properties they've mortgaged up the arse, demand in New York is never going to return to where it was, and they have no way to pay their loans. None of the developers in this situation are going to say no to Walmart.

My respond was to your misfacts on Barnes and Noble-chelsea and all the other stores including Joe Jr. closed down in the west village, clinton and Chelsea. In fact Joe Jr closed down recently because the Landlord hiked up his rents. my observations in my own backyard attest to Quinn deep ties with the real estate developers. In fact she permitted some of them to increase their maintance fee which burden a lot of retirees in the districts.

"Maintenance fees." Guaranteed you that Wal Mart can only rent in Brooklyn, not in Manhattan since the rents are still too high and they won't go to Harlem. I betting Red Hook.

Why wouldn't they go to Harlem? Now they're racist, too? I think not.

You're saying that real estate developers are pricing out the country's most sought after tenants and that they would rather have empty stores and lose millions of dollars on their investments? Congrats...you have no idea what you're talking about.

Virgin went out of business just like every other record store in the country, because NOBODY BUYS CDs anymore.

That B&N branch was just an underperforming location that got chopped during cost cutting measures.

WRONG, DO YOU EVEN LIVE IN NYC???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGb6lP4FVeg&feature=PlayList&p=3634876D3B3626E9&index=0&playnext=1

One dude who likes to ride my pecker. blah

fucking homophobe...

why do you keep asking dudes to ride your pecker?

I am asking you especially to get a girl so you won't be so fixated with me.

not that there's anything wrong with that.

Nope, Virgin Stores didn't want to renew the lease because the Landlord upped their rents.

You're vastly oversimplifying the issue. Yes the landlord raised the rents but the music and book retailing industry is suffering nationwide. Tower Records closed all their stores. Virgin closed all of their stores in the US. And last time I checked Barnes and Noble was doing poorly. And Borders is at death's door. Amazon has cheaper prices for books and better inventory. And people download music rather than buy CDs. If profits are down at brick and mortar stores is the landlord supposed to lower the rent? No, they find a new tenant with a future.

They didn't lower the rent but increase their rents by a large %. I never said for anyone to lower their rents but the unreasonable increase closed them down sooner.

And now that so many other big box stores have gone under and these developers have huge inventories of large, empty spaces, they are even more eager to unload it. If Walmart is the only bidder, they will find some deals. Times Square rent wouldn't fit in WMT's business model, but Harlem and outer borough locations very well might.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/a-giant-bookstore-goes-dark-in-chelsea/

“In anticipation of the lease coming up, we tried negotiating with the landlord,” said Mitchell S. Klipper, chief operating officer of Barnes & Noble. “The brokers came in and put crazy numbers in their minds. We can’t pay those kinds of rents. We’ve been looking two, three years for a replacement. We have not been able to find a suitable location at rents that are affordable.”

Wrong again, I really don't care if you disagree with me but at least state the correct facts. I live in Chelsea for many years now and Barnes and Noble was one of their best-performing stores. They closed because of the landlord upping their lease by a large %. Also Virgin record store manager told me that they were trying to negotiate their lease to remain opend.

wtf man, take your meds.

get a girlfriend, really dude, and get off my pecker now.

Until they make actual changes, providing a living wage...

Agreed. Years ago, my mom insured our entire family of five and added much-needed income to our household by working at Wal-mart. What other high school drop-out can say the same?

When bodegas and mom-and-pop stores stop raping me over the cost of a soda or a 10 year old box of tampons (which they probably bought in bulk at Costco anyway), then I'll start frequenting them. Otherwise, I'll stretch my hard-earned money as far as I can. There's a difference between paying for high-quality, premium products or services (i.e. local boutiques and florists) and paying out the ass for the same exact thing that can and does cost less elsewhere.

I bet the same people who argue against Wal-Mart for putting 'mom and pops' out of business also buy from Amazon.

Most of Amazon's is mom and pop businesses. Amazon is an enabling platform for small businesses to sell their things, ebay style, but without auctions, and hiding the fact it comes from an independent business.

Interestingly, my CC number wound up being used to buy 6 semi-truck tires through a "CC through phone call" at a chain tire shop 20 miles from the address of a Amazon mom and pop store I bought something from 1 month earlier. Both places were in Ohio.

Quinn belongs in jail

Granted Wal-Mart is evil and enriching China at the expense of the US.

However, I have to agree that NYers unthinking attachment to the quaint corner store is economically, and environmentally, unsustainable.

Small stores are unable to get the economies of scale that a Wal-mart can get. Three little stores ordering a product will not the discounts that one Wal-Mart will get. So yes, corner stores are more pricey ultimately and drive up the cost of living here. Not to mention the protection money, shrinkage and associated theft from the local crime families.

And consider the environmental impact. A truck delivering those products has to stop at three little stores, probably double parking, turning on and off the igntion. One truck can make one stop at a Wal-mart.

Hey, mom-and-pop stores can survive too. But for cheap, mass produced goods, I unfortunately would shop at a Wal-Mart too.

as evidenced across small-town america this is painfully untrue.

Mom and pop grocery stores were put under by Price Chopper, Hannaford, Grand Union, Stop n Shop, Wegmann's, and MANY others well-before Wal-Mart left the south.

And this romanticized version of the "small" grocers can be shattered by just going in to Gristedes. If "mom n pop" translates to "way higher prices with a decent shot of getting spoiled food" then they're doing a helluva job.

Wal-Mart is Microsoft of retail. They're the biggest, so they get the most hate -- even though Best Buy, Home Depot, Duane Reade, and CVS all do the same stuff in their niche.

Shoprite is a "mom and pop" store. Franchise cooperative, and you still get the "corporate supermarket" feeling, atleast to all the ones I've been at.

Speaking about NYC's "mom and pop" stores, Keyfood, Met Food, Pioneer, C-Town, Fine Fare, I never shop at any of them unless its an emergency. Rotten bruised everything. Milk always 2-3 days before expiration. Few if any diet/low calorie versions of brand name things. Not 1 thing from the organic/health type aisle. Aisles of ethnic junk food, junk food, and stuff that has lower food safety than "made in china". Selling rice by 25 lb bags should be illegal, only obesity and vitamin deficiency can result. Even the generic cat food says on the side it can only be used as a treat because there are no vitamins in it and you cat will die if you feed it regularly this stuff in fine print.

I find myself having to drive 10 miles into Long Island to goto a proper corporate supermarket with any standards for civilized western humans. "refrigeration? why do my customers need that? I didn't grow up with refrigeration and I'm fine, the govt is in cahoots with the power folks to make me use that refrigerator". Plus I'm pretty sure the milk that is on the shelves at my corporate supermarket gets taken off a few days before it expires, is then pumped into new boxes, and shows up at my local Fine Fare 2 days before expiring at a lower price. There is no other way to explain why the expiration dates are so different between the 2.

Apparently there is an inspection system for these ghettomarts, but the DOH doesn't put the results online. One Fine Fare had plenty of dead cockroaches in the fridges, and ice cream that was melted to liquid then refrozen in the article, and yogurt was 65f inside b/c they turned off the refrigerators for the night, then turned them back on in the morning, but it takes some hours for the products to rechill.

What about Trader Joe's? Just saying.

They're owned by Germans...you know what that means.

this situation goes way beyond grocery stores. it's a sorry state in the US that "owner/operator" is a romanticized idea.

p.s. wegman's is a fantastic store, family-owned, and regularly places the list of best companies to work for. i would say they are a pretty damn good business model.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2009/snapshots/5.html

"Hey, mom-and-pop stores can survive too."

as evidenced across small-town america this is painfully untrue.

I think there's room for both.

When I visit upstate, I buy large amounts of bulk items like toilet paper and paper towels because it's cheaper (that's a loss to NYC). But I still use the mom and pop stores for everyday food, vegetables, etc.

If NYC put in a Wal-Mart, I wouldn't be buying upstate.

I go to Jersey for a lot of purchases, with that whole strip in Edgewater that you can hit in a row -- Pathmark, Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's. But with a Whole Foods opening near my house, a Trader Joe's coming to 72nd street (from what I hear) and a Target on the east side around 116th Street I'll stay in New York more.

I'll still dump $500/month at the uptown Fairway. But you can't expect someone to shop at Food City and Associated forever when there's better stuff a short hop away. And if they bring it here then I won't have to go there.

Memo to Wal-Mart executives:

Spin off a new chain and call it something like "Made in the USA". Sell only products manufactured and assembled in the United States. (Yes, consumers understand that some of these products may cost a bit more than the foreign-made equivalents.) Go jingoistic if necessary to advertise this new chain -- it will be a hit.

If the Wal Mart employees dont like their job they are free to find another one. Their prices are the best.

educate yourself about wal-mart practices before spouting off, there is more to consider than just low prices. understand why their prices are "the best" and how wal-mart has gravely influenced manufacturing and ancillary industries in the US. hello "made in china."

book list:

http://walmartwatch.com/pages/background_reading_books_on_wal_mart/

"The Wal-Mart effect: Its Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs"

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/ib235/

well put hotstepper

Fuck Wal-Mart, but I'm pretty surprised there aren't any in SI yet.

Wal-Mart will definitely hit the boroughs at some point.

Ever wonder why it is so hard to fight them? It's because they are in cahoots with the U.S. Government. Think about it, the company has a huge food/ammo/supply warehouse in nearly every American city. Wal-Mart even has a division of "Emergency Operations" staffed by ex Military, Pentagon brass, etc.

Recently I visited a Wal-Mart in upstate NY. Edy's ice cream that I buy for $7.99 at Gristedes was regularly priced in Wal-Mart at $2.99.

Christine Quinn can kiss my ass.

Somehow or another, I predict that Felix will take this quote of Quinn's, provide some random you tube vidoe links, and proselytize to us about all the things that he (she?) can't stand.

Then Valierob will make fun of Felix and hilarity will ensue.

If you mean stealing from taxpayers and taking money from real developers to close down small business and put out residents then yes I can' stand those things. Quinn can suck my hairy nuts.

If you mean stealing from taxpayers and taking money from real developers to close down small business and put out residents then yes I can'T stand those things. Quinn can suck my hairy nuts.

I think you're all communists.

I thought we no longer have these double hits.

If you mean stealing from taxpayers and taking money from real developers to close down small business and put out residents then yes I can'T stand those things. Quinn can suck my hairy nuts.

http://christinequinn.com/

sigh...