Passing thought on Wal-Mart

Dear sir:
Just responding to news that Wal-Mart is considering coming to Fort Frances.
Now given that a bright new store with cheap goods, and greater convenience, can be exciting, not to mention all the new jobs it creates, a Wal-Mart store in town is a bad idea.
A bad idea because a Wal-Mart does not provide growth. One of the points for a Wal-Mart is to see the town grow. Now a typical Wal-Mart store is large and sells merchandise already available in the town. Also Wal-mart sells about the same amount of goods as all the stores downtown combined.
Therefore, something will have to go and you can be assured it will be the small merchants downtown—the small merchants who have worked hard to be part of the community.
Now one can say so what? Competition is good and it is a free country. Yes, that is true, but we should take a look at where the money goes when spent in a small local store. Most dollars spent get banked in town for reinvestment or re-spent again and again in other local businesses.
Now in the case of Wal-Mart, all that money will be gone from the community, shipped back to headquarters in Arkansas. This will further erode the town.
I hope town council is not looking at the added taxes a Wal-Mart will bring in as this will be offset by all the other businesses closing up. This also applies to the so-called new jobs a Wal-Mart store will bring. It will be job relocation instead of job creation.
Added to this will, no doubt, be Wal-Mart asking for service hookups (water, sewer, street changes, etc.) to be paid for by the town!
Now what will having the major source for merchandise on the edge of town mean to most people. Those with cars probably not much, but not everybody drives and I remember the town giving up on bus service a while back now.
Does the town want to bring the bus service back at great cost or is it tough luck for those that need transportation to the edge of town?
There are tales of small towns all over the U.S. that have been devastated by having a Wal-Mart come to town and become the “new downtown” because all the other local stores closed.
Take the case of Nowata, Okla., where a Wal-Mart opened in 1982. The town quickly sacrificed its downtown businesses to the big box store. Then Nowata got a double shot by Wal-Mart when the big box store closed in 1994 to open an even bigger one 30 miles away.
The town was left crippled, not only from the loss of jobs and tax base, but now people had to drive further for the same goods!
Now can this happen in Fort Frances, or maybe not. But I highlight it because this shows Wal-Mart’s disregard for community. They are out to make a buck, not build a community.
Okay, time for me to get nostalgic. Ever since I can remember (I grew up in Fort Frances, moving there in 1975 at five years old), downtown Fort Frances had life, vibrancy, and character. Sure, stores came and went, but Scott Street and the area was always the life blood of the town.
Now do you want to change that with one fell swoop by adding a Wal-Mart on the edge of town? How would this affect tourists? With tourism being a big part of the local economy, one has to ask do we want tourists to revel in our downtown’s ambience or do we want them to check out our big boring box store on the edge of town?
Contrary to some people’s opinion, Fort Frances has something special, something worth saving and protecting. Do you want to live in a town that will start to look like the suburban areas of every other North American city, like Winnipeg, Calgary, Toronto, etc.? Do you throw away the whole dynamic of the town to save a couple dimes on paper towels?
I don’t think so. A Wal-Mart in town is a bad idea.
I, unfortunately, have only scratched the surface of Wal-Mart shenanigans and consequences. A book I have used as a source is “How Wal-Mart is Destroying America (And the World)” by Bill Quinn (Ten Speed Press).
Check it out if I have stirred up some thoughts. It will be in the public library soon.
(Signed),
Ryan Herdman
Winnipeg, Man.