Voters in Contra Costa County, California, will decide in March whether to keep a law banning supercenters from unincorporated areas in the county. Contra Costa County is home to about one million people and lies east of the San Francisco Bay area.

The law, which was approved unanimously by the County Board of Supervisors in June, prohibits stores over 90,000 square feet that devote more than five percent of their floor space to groceries.

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Voters in Lakeway, Texas, about 20 miles west of Austin, overwhelmingly rejected a resolution to allow the construction of a 48-acre shopping center anchored by a 184,00-square-foot Wal-Mart store. The election drew the largest turnout in Lakeway history with residents voting 1,880 to 749 to block the development by retaining the town’s current 100,000-square-foot size limit on retail stores.

The city council had earlier voted to lift the size cap and grant preliminary approval to the project.

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Owners of a small business in Birmingham, Alabama, near the site of a proposed Wal-Mart supercenter, have filed suit against the city for giving the retailing giant a $10 million subsidy. Southeast Meats of Pelham, in operation for over two decades, contends the handout gives Wal-Mart an unfair advantage. The suit also asserts that the city improperly threatened to use eminent domain to force owners of the Wal-Mart property to sell. Continue reading

Pennsylvania pharmacists are up in arms over a new health plan for state workers that bars them from filling prescriptions at locally owned drugstores, requiring instead that they use Rite Aid or a mail order service.

The plan is run by a pharmacy benefit management company (PBM), which the state says will reduce costs by negotiating lower drug prices. In exchange, employees must accept restrictions on where they fill their prescriptions.

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Faced with strong opposition from a broad array of organizations and residents, Wal-Mart has abandoned plans to build a 24-hour supercenter on an ecologically sensitive site in southwest Austin. The 43-acre wooded tract sits over the Edwards Aquifer, the largest underground reservoir in Texas. It feeds Barton Springs and supplies drinking water to thousands of people.

Initially, opposition to Wal-Mart centered on its choice of location and the impact polluted parking lot runoff would have on the aquifer.

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