Tucson ‘boxes out’ Wal-Mart supercenters

Friday, Oct. 1, 1999 | 11:25 a.m.

The Tucson, Ariz., City Council Monday night passed an ordinance not unlike the one Clark County commissioners will consider next week putting restrictions on so-called "big-box" stores such as Wal-Mart.

The proposed Clark County ordinance would prohibit stores with more than 110,000 square feet of retail space from having more than 2,000 square feet of food sales, in effect shutting down Wal-Mart's plans to open three supercenters.

Commissioners, who have been under intense pressure from both sides of the issue, sent the proposal to the state attorney general's office for an opinion and will vote on it Wednesday during their twice-monthly zoning meeting.

Tucson Planning Director Bill Vasko said the new ordinance in his city, which has a population just over 475,000 and a total metropolitan population of about 850,000, does not ban the big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot but it does provide for a lengthy review process before they may be approved.

The original ordinance in Tucson was developed as a result of complaints from neighbors of a shopping center where a Wal-Mart supercenter and a Home Depot were going to locate.

"This is not a ban, but it is a special exception process," Vasko said. "It would require a review of the project based on a series of criteria -- traffic, buffers, screening, noise, lighting and hours of operation. It would require action by the City Council on the request." Any proposed construction would go to a public hearing before the city zoning examiner, who makes a recommendation to the council. The council would conduct a second public hearing and approve, modify or reject the plans.

The new ordinance in Arizona, which takes effect Oct. 27, relates to stores of 100,000 square feet or more.

At the last minute, the Tucson City Council inserted an amendment to the ordinance that limits areas for sales of nontaxable grocery items to no more than 10 percent of the superstore's floor space.

Ten percent, or 10,000 square feet, is considerably more than what the Clark County ordinance would permit -- which is 2,000 square feet, about the size of a small convenience store.

Daphne Davis, Wal-Mart community affairs coordinator, said the Tucson City Council caught her company off-guard and did not allow for sufficient public input to give the largest private employer in the United States a fair chance to respond.

She said there was a quick public hearing, discussion was closed and the amendment to the ordinance was added.

Wal-Mart, however, is not going to get caught with its prices down in Las Vegas.

The corporation, estimated to have more than 900,000 employees nationwide, took out a full-page ad in local papers last week and mailed 250,000 fliers to the public urging them to call commissioners demanding they vote against the proposed ordinance.

The expensive effort generated about 600 phone calls to the county Wednesday, effectively jamming the system.

Roberta West, head of United Food and Commercial Workers' Local 711, which is among the severest critics of the nonunion Wal-Mart, said unions will have their own full-page newspaper ad Sunday and radio ads beginning Saturday.

"Residents are getting fliers in the mail right now," she said.

West admits there is a certain amount of self-interest in the issue as far as unions are concerned.

"We're a union town. We're not going to sit here and tell you it's not a big issue for me and my union. It definitely is," she said. "Union workers live here and spend money here. They don't take it back to Bentonville, Ark., (Wal-Mart headquarters) and spend it."

West said the issue is bigger than management vs. labor.

"Wal-Mart has destroyed thousands of neighborhood stores throughout the country," she said. "The main issue has been from the very beginning the effect that the supercenters will have on the community.

"We've done a lot of research on all the aspects of this giant entity moving into the market. Our (the grocery worker's union) concern is grocery stores, but we also are concerned about small businesses and everyone affected.

"When these entities move into the community the whole tax base is shaken up. When these supercenters come in you end up in a minus figure.

"What we're saying is, we need a limit on the size of these stores. No one is saying they can't build a Wal-Mart store. They can build 15,000 if they want. But we're trying to protect the multiplier effect. There has got to be a limit to what Wal-Mart can do to the community."

Daphne Davis strongly objects to any assertion that Wal-Mart is bad for a community.

"It's unfair," said Davis. "What we see in thousands of small communities across the country is Wal-Mart breathing new life into the dying retail sectors.

"The American consumers have changed immensely in small-town America. Wal-Mart brings more customers to town who patronize other businesses as well as Wal-Mart.

"In Clark County, there is a huge retail sector. There is a lot of competition, particularly in groceries."

Davis said two issues are at stake -- the right of businesses to compete and the right of customers to shop where they want.

"It's very simple," she said. "The ordinance before the County Commission essentially would take away the customers' right to do grocery shopping where they want."

The proposal clearly doesn't have the best interest of the public in mind, Davis said.

"It is to protect (other) businesses from competition, sacrificing the consumers' right to choose," she said.

Davis also said Wal-Mart employees have rejected unionizing on several occasions.