Walmart has rolled out a new website intended to persuade New Yorkers that the notorious mom-and-pop killing chain will be good for the city. The website features testimonials from government officials and ordinary folk like New Jersey's John Bond, who writes, "As a shopper, I say that unions destroy companies. I go to union stores and there is no one to help you. Go to non-union stores and there are workers all over the place. Do you have any idea how many jobs New York City Walmarts would create? Keeping these stores out of New York leaves all the more jobs and money for us here in New Jersey." It never occurred to us that this Walmart debate actually boils down to a New York Vs. Jersey thing! Now we must have Walmart! But the City Council just doesn't get it.
Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), a Walmart opponent, is holding hearings Wednesday to weigh the merits of what could be the first Walmart location in NYC, in East New York. But Philip Serghini, Walmart's senior manager for community affairs, has declined the City Council's invitation to attend, and he says it's unfair that Walmart is facing so much scrutiny when other chains like Target and K-Mart have been embraced by New York.
"The joint hearing... does not appear to consider the impact of the hundreds of NYC stores operated by these companies; rather it focuses solely on Walmart," Serghini wrote in a letter to the City Council. "Since we have not announced a store for New York City, I respectfully suggest the committee first conduct a thoughtful examination of the existing impact of large grocers and retailers on small businesses in New York City before embarking on a hypothetical exercise. For these reasons and more, we respectfully decline participation."
In response, Quinn tells the Daily News, "If you run away from an opportunity to sit in front of the Legislature of the city you say you want to be in, that speaks volumes. If you're not proud of who you are and what you do, you run away. If they don't show up it's because they don't have anything to say to refute the arguments that my colleagues and myself have put forth. If they did... why wouldn't they come and rub my face in it?" But Walmart doesn't rub faces, it merely stomps on them.
