Stymied by Politicians, Wal-Mart Turns to Voters

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By JOHN M. BRODER

Published: April 5, 2004
NGLEWOOD, Calif., April 2 — As Wal-Mart continues its march across the American landscape, this Los Angeles suburb of 112,000 people is the latest testing ground for the company's exercise of political and marketing muscle.

Inglewood voters go to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to turn over 60 acres of barren concrete adjacent to the Hollywood Park racetrack to Wal-Mart to create a megastore and a collection of chain shops and restaurants.

The ballot initiative is sponsored by Wal-Mart, which collected more than 10,000 signatures to put the question to voters after the Inglewood City Council blocked the proposed development last year, citing environmental, traffic, labor, public safety and economic concerns.

While Wal-Mart has turned to the ballot in a number of cities and towns to win the right to build its giant emporiums, the Inglewood initiative is significantly different. The proposal would essentially exempt Wal-Mart from all of Inglewood's planning, zoning and environmental regulations, creating a city-within-a-city subject only to its own rules. Wal-Mart has hired an advertising and public relations firm to market the initiative and is spending more than $1 million to support the measure, known as initiative 04-A.

The company is blanketing the community, which is roughly half African-American and half Latino, with mailers and telephone calls and is broadcasting advertisements on television stations with black and Latino audiences.

Company officials say that Wal-Mart adopted this aggressive new tactic only after it became clear that Inglewood officials — backed by allies in organized labor, church groups and community organizations — would never approve the complex. Wal-Mart is strongly anti-union.

"We were told, basically, `Don't waste your time,' " said Peter Kanelos, the Southern California coordinator for Wal-Mart's community affairs division.

"But these groups are not representative of the community," he said. "Organized labor is attempting to bully Wal-Mart and its customers. If organized labor and those elected officials they put into power think they're going to attack Wal-Mart, then they better expect Wal-Mart to fight back."

The project's opponents say that Wal-Mart is the one doing the bullying. They noted that the company paid signature gatherers for the ballot initiative more than it pays its average clerk.

And they say that Inglewood will be a test case. If the initiative succeeds here, they say, it will become a model for Wal-Mart sovereignty across the nation and around the globe.

"This is the first time in the country they've tried to do something this extreme," said Madeline Janis-Aparicio, leader of the Coalition for a Better Inglewood, a group formed to fight the Wal-Mart project. "They are driving a Mack truck through California land use, planning and environmental law and trying to create a Wal-Mart government on this 60-acre site. If they succeed in doing this, it will be their blueprint."

Ms. Janis-Aparicio's coalition expects to spend about $35,000 to oppose the project. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor will add about $125,000 and provide logistical aid in the form of phone banks and precinct walkers.

They are joined by many of the merchants along Inglewood's downtrodden Market Street, whose store windows display signs reading: "Save Our Community From Wal-Mart. No on 4A."

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has announced plans to build 40 supercenters in California over the next five years, combining its usual assortment of goods with a full line of groceries. California's grocery workers and supermarket chains are trying to slow or stop the company's expansion. They have enlisted the support of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Nation of Islam and a number of elected officials and community groups opposed to Wal-Mart's employment practices and its impact on local merchants.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/na...agewanted=1&th