They're Up Against the Wal

By SOPHFRONIA SCOTT GREGORY

Wal-Mart, the retail discount giant, was prepared for just about any misgiving the residents of Greenfield, Massachusetts, might have. In exchange for turning a 63-acre lot into a 121,267-sq.-ft. store, they would pay the town $100,000 in annual taxes and cover much needed road improvements too. The store even agreed to spring for an archaeological dig on the site, once an Indian campground. "All people were thinking was, 'This is where I'm going to get cheap underwear,' " says resident Al Norman.

That is, until Norman got a gander at an artist's sketch of the proposed store. "It made me sick," he says. "There was this three-level building, this antiseptic, big white monster. It was like letting a 300-lb. gorilla into your living room." But town leaders were already wooed and won, giving Wal- Mart the desired zoning change for the site from industrial to commercial. Norman and like-minded neighbors mobilized quickly, forming the "We're Against the Wal Committee" and bombarding the area with bumper stickers, lawn signs and newspaper ads showing people the store was so big that three baseball stadiums the size of Boston's Fenway Park could fit on the land.

When Norman and his neighbors joined forces, they also joined thousands of others across the country in a grass-roots movement that a few years ago seemed most unlikely: fighting major retailers trying to move into their neighborhoods. After years of passively accepting -- sometimes even welcoming -- the likes of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Payless Drug Stores, K Mart and Price Club, residents are now protesting in the streets and hectoring at town planning meetings. They feel they are now wise to the disadvantages such stores bring: increased traffic, air pollution and cannibalization of their hometown retailers. Add modern media savvy to the mix, and you have a group, regardless of their number, that can make a stink big enough to bring them nationwide attention . . . and victory.

Last week the people of Greenfield (pop. 18,000) delivered Wal-Mart its third defeat this year when residents voted to keep the discount retailer from building the gorilla in their midst. Some 60% of the town turned out for the vote, preventing the measure that would have rezoned the proposed site by a slim nine-vote margin. Similar resistance in Westford, Massachusetts (pop. 16,000), and North Olmsted, Ohio (pop. 34,000), has led Wal-Mart to withdraw its interest there as well.

The protests have grown in proportion to the relentless, expansionary march of behemoth retailers. Hundreds of new megastores are opening annually: major retailers spent over $11 billion in 1992 on capital expenditures for new stores, 16% more than in 1991. Wal-Mart, which began the year with 1,880 stores, now has 1,954, and will add 150 by January. Home Depot is expanding at a rate of one store a week.

Greatest resistance has come in the Northeast. After being listed as an endangered natural entity by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the state of Vermont has been fighting Wal-Mart with true Yankee moxie. Home Depot has likewise encountered lawsuits from the people of West Roxbury, Massachusetts, and Ozone Park in Queens, New York. What irks many citizens is the apparent ease with which the megastores are granted building permits without the customary impact studies, or in other cases, given permits in apparent violation of local zoning laws. Sometimes construction is under way before residents even realize a store is coming.

In Ozone Park residents rallied under the banner of the Coalition for Community Preservation and Stabilization after a 150,000-sq.-ft. store began to go up behind a row of small, Archie Bunker-type homes. The coalition claimed that Home Depot gained its building permit without having undergone New York City's Uniform Land Use Review Process. It also says the store will devote 40,000 sq. ft. of space to building materials -- far more than the 10,000-sq.-ft. maximum required by law. Jesse Masyr, counsel for Home Depot, called the charges "specious."

"The citizens of Queens are getting a raw deal," says Nell Parker, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Home Depot. She points out that most of the coalition members are hardware-store owners and only care about saving their own businesses. "People are paying expensive prices for building materials there." Counters Brian Herman, a lawyer and hardware-store owner involved with the coalition: "Everybody knows they're out to kill the little guy. That store changes the face of the economic ecosystem for the whole community."

But other experts, like Leonard Berry, director of Texas A&M's Center for Retailing Studies, believe victories by grass-roots groups like the coalition deprive residents of the opportunity to buy goods and services more cheaply, especially in urban areas like New York City and Los Angeles, which are monopolized by small, more expensive specialty retailers. "For towns to deny entry into the market is contrary to free enterprise," Berry says.

And while the grass-roots groups congratulate themselves and advise neighboring communities to follow suit, other citizens, like the 2,845 Greenfield residents who voted in favor of Wal-Mart, feel less euphoric. They had been looking forward to the economic boost the store could have provided. "The town of Greenfield could use the jobs," says Alfred Havens, president of the town council. Major retailers are big job generators in today's economy. Wal-Mart is the nation's second largest private employer after General Motors.

Recent studies also weaken the argument that the large retailers hurt the economy of the communities. Kenneth Stone, an economics professor at Iowa State, conducted a study of Iowa towns with Wal-Marts and found that while the number of small retailers did decline, other business was attracted to the area. "Apparently Wal-Mart stores attracted customers into town from a greater radius than had occurred before their entry," Stone says.

Armed with such conclusions, the big retailers view their setbacks with less alarm, knowing there is fertile ground elsewhere. "For every Greenfield, there are literally scores of other communities who would give their eyetooth for a Wal-Mart store," says Wal-Mart spokesman Don Shinkle. "You must understand that the minority is very vocal."

Based on the numbers, the discount retailers may appear to have the better side of the economic argument. But for many small-town residents, there are less tangible but still important issues. "There's one thing you can't buy in a Wal-Mart," says Greenfield's Norman. "That's small-town quality of life. And once you lose it, you can't get it back at any price." As any wise shopper knows, you get what you pay for.

With reporting by Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles, Leslie Whitaker/Chicago and Tom Witkowski/Boston