A Walmart Story, Part 2

In our previous post, we saw how WalMart moved into  thriving small town and destroyed it with its low prices/low wages business plan, eventually leaving the town an empty shell of its former self,

Now we move to Pt. 2: REBIRTH!

Some years later some starving artists find this empty town with this grand old theater and empty houses. They move in and start making art and telling everybody at Burning Man to come see them. For about a year some truly revolutionary art is created.

Rich's real estate overseer finds these artists on his annual trip to the property and reports to Rich. Rich swings a deal whereby these "artists" can live in his vacant buildings for a modest rent while he still claims them as "vacant" on his taxes.

The following year more artists come, along with folks who love artists and want to be artists. YouTube videos of the spectacular events there get attention from the radical press, which are then picked up by the mainstream media. Art lovers start to come to this town to see the art. Vic works odd jobs for these artists, running to the convenience store to get them coffee. He manages to save up enough money to get a cofe maker and sets up a little coffee stand to cater to these new people coming to see the art. The artists and wanna-be artists set up little shops and boutiques in the vacant storefronts to sell things to each other and the art lovers.

Vic moves into a vacant storefront himself, gets some couches left behind by former residents and sets up a "cafe" where local art is displayed and the new residents hang out.

Rich finds out about all this, and so do local municipalities. Rich knows the gig is up, so he claims innocence, swears that he did not know about this, but he will bring the buildings up to spec for habitation if the municipality can change the zoning from "condemned" to "residential/commercial."

Rich offers official leases to all the people living and working in his buildings. These leases are a lot higher than the rents the people were paying before. Higher even than Bob and Carl were paying when they had shops there. 

Most of the "first wave" of artists can no longer afford to be there and have to move out. They are replaced by more up-scale entrepreneurs and trust fund kids who wear skinny jeans and ironic glasses. Vic takes out a small-business loan to expand cafe and make it really chic. The cafe becomes the social center of the community. The new residents start having kids and raising families. The neighborhood becomes safe and desirable. More people start moving in. There is new construction. The theater (which had closed because the artists who had renovated it were among the first who had to move out) is gutted and renovated into condo lofts.

Big corporations notice the growth of this community and start looking to move in their franchises. Starbucks. Subway. McDonald's. All with specially designed storefronts in keeping with the "hip, artsy vibe" of the new community. Vic's cafe turns out to be in the most desirable spot in town. Rich jacks up his rent again, to a degree that Rich knows Vic can't afford, but a major bank that has been looking for a spot to open a new branch can. Vic holds fundraisers and the remaining artists in town hold festivals to support him, but there is no way he is going to be able to afford the rent, and he closes a month later. In 3 weeks a spanking new Capital One branch opens in its place. Rich provides another storefront with the same rent he had been paying ("Look what I did for you!") in a far less convenient section of town. Vic gives it the "old college try," but the magic is gone, his customers have fled or are now at Starbucks, and he descends into a haze of alcohol and painkillers and PTSD nightmares and is dead before the end of the year.

The local community newspapers (started by third-wave people who had moved in, and which had taken over from those started by the first and second wave which did not survive the new rents) bemoan the "gentrification" of the town and write tributes to the Vic's Cafe as they write "what did it used to be?" articles about the former-theater-turned-condo-lofts and research the origins of the street names.

The WalMart comes along. The residents (most of whom have not been living there for more than three years) fight the new WalMart location in their community with a massive letter-writing campaign to their elected officials and demonstration on the proposed site of the WalMart with sign and banners and music and massive theatrics against the corporate takover of local, thriving communities. WalMart runs commercials about how warm and fuzzy they are and how they help communities. while sending out a mailing of flyers promoting their low prices and "consumer choice."

I understand they are still fighting it out in court.

But at least for now, that is why and how you keep WalMart out of your community.

A Walmart Story, Part 1

A few years ago someone on Facebook did not understand how WalMart cold be bad for a town and why you wold want to fight it. I came up with this two-part story, this hypothetical case, based on various reports, to help explain.

Imagine, if you will, a small town in America. In this town is Bob's Bicycle Shop, right across the street from Carl's Candle Shop. These shops have been around for years, their respective businesses having been passed from father to son for generations. Bob's business began when his grandfather, Buck, opened the store with a GI Bill loan after WWII, while Car'ls ancestors made candles for Colonel Chamberlain during the Civil War (it was such a big deal they named a street after him).

Bob has a son (Billy) who works for him in the bicycle shop, and a wife (Bertha) stays at home and takes care of his daughter, a 7-year old just starting second grade (Betty). He employs Tom, a 19-year-old bicycle expert who builds and repairs custom bikes while saving his money to go to competitions. He has a shot at making the US Olympic team.

Carl has a 20-year-old son (Chris), who is attending the local college, and a 16-year-old daughter (Carrie) works for him in the candle shop, learning the trade in hopes of following in his footsteps. He has a six-year-old son (Connor) who is just about to be big enough for his own bicycle. Carl's wife (Cathy) is a partner in the business.

There is also Rich, a wealthy person who has a mansion just outside of town with a family he supports with his vast wealth, earned through shrewd investments. He is the biggest customer of Bob and Carl.

On the other side of town is Vic, an unemployed wounded veteran just getting by on his pension from the army.

Rich finances a theater company, which produces high-quality shows with out-of-town talent (and occasionally Carrie, Billy, and Chris) in a theater next to the gallery he sponsors that brings in visiting exhibitions of fine art. 

Bob's and Carl's families attend these shows and exhibits often, buying tickets with the money earned through their businesses. This also brings in folks from miles around, who also shop at the bicycle and candle shops.

WalMart moves into town with the help of a three-year tax break from the municipality. They post up "Help 

Wanted" notices in the local paper. Vic needs a job, cleans himself up, and gets hired full-time as a sales associate/stockboy. Bertha figures she could use a little extra money and has free time during the day when the kids are in school and at work, so she applies and gets a part time job as the morning cashier. Chris needs some cash for books and other college expenses so he applies and gets a part-time job as the night shift cashier. They all work for wages below those paid by Carl and Bob to their employees.

Rich sees an opportunity to save money, so he stops buying candles and bicycles at their shops and starts going to WalMart. The reduces the income for both stores. So when Connor's birthday comes around, and Carl wants to get him that bicycle he promised, he can't afford to go to Bob's any more, he has to go to WalMart, where bicycles are cheaper retail than Bob can get them wholesale.

Now Bob is making even less money, so when it comes time to buy those holiday candles he gets every year, he can't afford to get the fine, hand-made candles from Carl, he has to go to WalMart.

So both Bob and Carl go out of business. Now the big breadwinners in their respective houses are Bertha and Connor, who both work part-time. Without the support of his family, Chris will have to choose between either a) increasing his hours at WalMart (if they will let him), b) taking out student loans, or c) dropping out of school altogether.

Fortunately, WalMart has expanded and hires Bob and Carl. So now Bob gets to work in the bicycle department and Carl in the candle department and Cathy becomes the full-time cashier, working alongside Bertha in the morning and Chris in the evening.

Tom's Olympic dreams are put on hold as his savings dribble away as he looks for a bicycle shop somewhere in the country that could use his services.

Since both businesses are out of business, the municipality and state are not getting any business taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, income taxes, or licencing fees from them or their employees. WalMart is enjoying its tax-free status, and the wages it pays are so low, its employees don't have to pay taxes.

Bob and Carl fall behind on their mortgages and are in danger of losing their homes. They can no longer afford the property taxes, either.

The municipality now does not have the money to fix the roads or repair the streetlights, garbage collection goes from weekly to bi-weekly, and the annual 4th of July festival is cancelled for lack of funds.

Now that both families have multiple family members working at WalMart, they have little time to do anything else. 

They apply for food stamps and Medicaid, as they are not able to meet their household expenses on WalMart's pay, which is also too low for them to afford tickets to Rich's theater. Some out-of-towners realize that DVDs at 

WalMart are cheaper than the theater and calendars at WalMart or cheaper than admission to the gallery, so fewer people are going to the theater and gallery.

Rich closes the theater and the gallery for lack of business and moves his family to his Miami house because the town is going downhill. Those few people who were still coming to the town for the theater, gallery, bikes, or candles, stop coming because they are not there anymore. the only people coming to the town are coming to shop at WalMart.

WalMart opens another store in a bigger town nearby. Out-of-Towners stop coming to the WalMart at this town.

WalMart reduces its staff due to lack of business. The last ones in are the first ones out. Mortgage defaults are just a matter of time now.

WalMart closes its less profitable stores and lays off the rest of its employees in this town.

Bob and Carl default on their mortgages, and their homes are foreclosed by the bank (which is partly owned by Rich). they no longer pay real estate taxes, so the school closes.

Now the folks living in this town have no jobs, no savings, no businesses, no capital, and no cash, and the kids have no school to which to go. In good Okie tradition both families pile into the SUV's they got back when they had money, and, just one step ahead of the repo men, head to some big city in a state with generous Public Assistance programs.

Rich chalks up the foreclosed loans as a loss and collects the guaranteed payments by Fannie Mae. The municipality condemns the now-vacant buildings in town.

Vic struggles along on his Army pension, shopping for groceries at the convenience store attached to the gas station down by the intersection of the county road and the state road.

NEXT: Rebirth!

182 Graham Antonio's gas

Here is Antonio Cook, Building manager of 182 Graham Ave, denying his job and identity after dragging his feet on getting the gas turned back on in 2018.

182 Graham Ave November 2018 developments, walk-thru's, etc

Here we see a series of days following the Nov 2 "interview with Antonio Cook. We also start to deal with the gas, which has been turned off for over a month...

182 Graham Ave walk-thru 10/12/2018

This video was shot just one day after the October 11 Walk-though, and it catches evidence of work in the morning, some in the evening, and someone in the act of working!

182 Graham walk-thru 10/31/2018

Here is a walk-through of 182 Graham Ave on October 31, 2018, showing more evidence of un-permitted renovations being done by buuilding manager Antonio Cook.

182 Graham Rm 3B Extended with follow-up commentary