Note: This article was originally published in the April 2002 issue of Democratic Energy.
Note: The article below was first published in Democratic Energy in October 2002.
After months of debate on the consequences of big-box development, the Los Angeles City Council this month enacted a law that requires supercenters to undergo an economic impact analysis before being approved.
The law applies to retail stores larger than 100,000 square feet that devote more than 10 percent of their floor space to food and that are seeking to locate in economic assistance zones.
Calvert County, Maryland, has enacted regulations limiting retail stores to 120,000 square feet in the town of Prince Frederick, 75,000 square feet in three other towns, and 25,000 square feet in the rest of the county.
The regulations block Wal-Mart’s plans to double the size of its 97,000-square-foot Prince Frederick store, the only Wal-Mart in the county, and to build a new supercenter in the town of Dunkirk.
California taxpayers are spending $86 million a year providing healthcare and other public assistance to the state’s 44,000 Wal-Mart employees, according to a new study by UC Berkeley’s Institute for Industrial Relations. The study, "Hidden Cost of Wal-Mart Jobs," found that the average Wal-Mart worker required $730 in taxpayer-funded healthcare and $1,222 in other forms of assistance, such as food stamps and subsidized housing, to get by. Continue reading
In May, Vermont became the seventeenth state in the nation to close a loophole that major chain retailers are using to evade paying state income taxes.
The loophole allows multi-state corporations to shift income made at stores in Vermont to subsidiaries in low- or no-tax states like Delaware and Nevada. Income shifted in this manner, although earned in Vermont, is not subject to the state’s corporate income tax.
"We may look back and think this is one of the most important things we’ve done," said Bristol, Rhode Island, Town Councilor Halsey Herreshoff after the council unanimously passed a formula business ordinance in May. Bristol is a community of 23,000 people about half an hour southeast of Providence.
The ordinance bars formula businesses larger than 2,500 square feet or that take up more than 65 feet of street frontage from locating in Bristol’s historic downtown.
A new study documents more than $1 billion in state and local development subsidies that have flowed to Wal-Mart, and that figure likely represents only the tip of the iceberg.
"Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Its Never-Ending Growth," produced by Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization, identifies 244 Wal-Mart stores and distribution centers in 35 states that have received subsidies totaling just over $1 billion.
The city of Bennington, Vermont, has enacted a store size cap ordinance that effectively puts an end to attempts by Wal-Mart to build a giant supercenter.
"The concern has been that if a single retailer becomes too large and too powerful it destroys all competition in the marketplace. And we want to avoid that," said Bennington planning director Dan Monks.
The city of Vancouver, Canada, has banned big-box stores in one neighborhood and is studying the possibility of a citywide store size cap . Continue reading
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