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The Coast is great, but the Green cuide is a bit of a joke. Pretty much the only business in Halifax NOT on the list is Wal-Mart. That should be reviewed and taken a little more seriously.
—WalMart
This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2009.
30 Comments
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Walmart’s awesome.
Unfortunately, Wally Mart has a greener record than some of our local business…
Wal-Mart has the best parking lot for camping.
i freaking love wal-mart!!!!
about a week ago they had big blocks of cheese for $2!!!! how can you not love that?
That’s not a very powerful statement Dr. Fever. A “greener record than some of our local businesses” should in no way suggest that Wal-mart is an eco-friendly corporation. They take some initiatives to put on a green face to the consumer, but their entire business model is pretty much: “Consume!”
Jane, if we all keep buying those $2 blocks of cheese we will shop ourselves right out of our jobs.
witht he cost of cheese these days…. also where i love cheese so much why would i pay $7 for a block when i can purchase it for $2?
Wal mart caters to low and middle income earners who are exactly the people whose jobs are at risk by them shopping there. A wal-mart in Halifax might not be as disastrous as a wal-mart in a smaller town, but the effects can still be felt. Wal-mart hurts small and local business and once you lose your job, the only place you can afford to shop is wal-mart. It’s a great business model.
Sorry Miles. Walmart puts inefficient local retailers out of business. Yes, it may be true that folks who work and own these small retailers are harmed in the short run, but the vast majority of consumers benefit from shopping there. Studies have shown that they can save a few hundred dollars a year when Walmart moves into a market area. These savings can be saved (which is a good thing) or they can be spent on other goods and services (like pizza, or entertainment)thereby benefiting firms and employees in these markets. Seems like a little basic economics is order Miles.
That works until Wal-mart decides to start making pizza and putting on entertainment.
Buck, I may not be an economics major, but I’m pretty sure it’s a little more complicated than you describe.. Most of the money I spend at Wal-mart doesn’t stay in my community. The money I used to spend at my local grocer or sporting goods store did. In a lot of cases, it’s not a question of efficiency for local businesses. Wal-mart purposely undercuts or even takes a loss on some products to get you in the door to buy other cheap things that you will only need to replace in a year anyway.
Since when is any retailer “efficient”? The whole point is to sell you as much stuff as you don’t need. WalMart probably spends a few tens of millions of dollars on in-store marketing, precisely for that purpose.
Wal Mart also forces the producers that they buy for to take losses so that Walmart can sell for less. The reason that something lke Mayo is cheaper at Walmart? Because Walmart tells the mayo company to make them a product that they can sell for $1 less than usual, (and still make a profit of course). So if that company wants their product sold in walmarts, they either have to make an inferior product, or sell their product to walmart and take a loss.
I suspect that $2 cheese might be an example of that PAS.
Out of curiosity Jane, what brand of cheese is $2/brick?
And what size is that brick of cheese. I try to buy the 520 gram size when Sobeys/Superstore has it on for under $5. I like Walmart and will rejoyce the day when we get Walmart Supercenters with the grocery stores in them to compete with Sobeys and Superstore. The only downfall is they won’t have what I consider cheap milk and turkey like the US versions. I have to shop where the food is cheapest in order to stretch my budget as far as I can and if local can’t keep up, I can’t help that.
No, you can’t help that. And Wal-mart knows it. Like I said, they have a good business model.
I wouldn’t call it good necessarily.
The thing is that they have the producers under their thumb because they’re so huge. Sobeys and SS are big here, but nowhere else. Walmart is similar to McDonalds, McD’s has the beef market, so they can get them to do whatever they want. Walmart has the cheap good market, and can charge what they please, because no brand wants to be excluded from Walmart, where half the world shops. It’s smart on their part, but not good for anyone other than walmart.
You people scare me. Wal-mart does not have a good business model, Walmart has an unethical and unjust business model that not only preys on small local retailers (yes, whose small profits tend to stay in their own community) and puts them out of business, but it also forces what ‘business’ is left to market on large scale models that offer nothing to the local community except a few poorly paying jobs. (ever wonder why we went from having 9 different grocery stores in the 1970’s that sold only -gasp- groceries!- to a few mega run stores that all sell the same stuff and half of it isn’t food? It wasn’t because they were inefficient, it was because they could not compete with a much larger company that deliberately undersold everyone else until that larger company put almost all the rest of the grocery stores of out of business.That’s where your knowledgable employees went too. Do you remember the days when you could go in a grocery store and the staff would know everything about their products, which were usually local, because they had that job as a real career and were trained to know all that was needed to be the best? It’s the Wal-marts that have made the food industry into one where many employees are just young people that are doing their work only as a transitional, minimum wage job that provides them with little knowledge or training. It’s simply cheaper than keeping “real” careers here!) And all of Wal-marts profit doesn’t stay here either. It gets funnelled from their headquarters (I believe in Upper Canada)to the larger corporation in the States. And do you really understand where your food savings come from? Not just Wal-marts bullying tactics of other companies in North America, but its use of poorly paid labour in third world countries like China. Finally, do you know where that piece of cheese came from either? Is it from North America or another country that has lower food standards than our own. What are you putting into your mouth? Do you realize that for any product to say that it is a product of Canada, all it has to do is have 51% of the product made (or processed) here and that includes the plastic wrap and the cardboard packaging. Check out where your fish and chicken are actually coming from too. (especially if it’s a Highliner product, but certainly not limited to them) Their fish comes from overseas where it is cut and processed in plants with poor sanitation and little regulation. It’s only breaded and boxed over here, which is enough to get it a “Made in Canada ” label. When you opt for that cheap food (and I understand, we’re poor too and it’s hard to even afford both food and rent) do you think about how much suffering you are contributing to , for so many other people in other countries? It’s a scary world. You have to look behind Wal-marts happy face mascot and see what you are complicit in helping. We all do. And Wal-mart’s not the only one by far, they are just a good example. And it’s not hard to be “greener” than most here. I find in N.S. we don’t take our talk seriously, we don’t walk the walk very often. It’s time we started to though, in all ways.
I Like WalMart because they allow walrusses in stretchy pants and hair curlers to shop there with their equally obese partners, who’s idea or sartorial elegance is a Dale Ernhardt wife beater tucked into his fat pants. This is a free (freak) show not to be missed, they very conveniently place a comfy bench so you can watch the dog and pony show at your leisure.
If you prefer to support your local retailer, go for it, but I’d sooner save big dollars on a large purchase of a product made overseas.
When suppliers strike a deal with walmart, it’s jackpot time. Indeed, they do have to drop their prices, but not to a point where they are loosing money. What they do is they substitute a higher margin with volume, so instead of making a dollar on a product and sell 1000 units of it, with walmart they make 20 cents and sell one million of it.
Yet, the ability of local businesses to compete remains an issue. This is one issue that is addressed in the current debate regarding tax reform in the city.
In essence, you can fairly say that a local business’ failure against walmart is the business’ own fault if the business had control over its own competitive environment. However, local businesses don’t compete with Walmart on an even playing field because of the inequitable commercial property tax issue in Halifax.
To give you an example, a small shop on Quinpool road pays nearly 1000% more tax on their property than the entire Walmart on Bayers Lake. So, some shops simply can’t afford to drop prices on their wares or else they won’t be able to afford the lease. This leads to many businesses closing because the foot traffic is diverted to business parks outside the city core (see Barrington Street).
Business parks like Bayers Lake were originally intended and zoned to contain warehouses that required little to no services. So, when large investment brokers and real estate companies from Ontario offered to buy the land, the city sold it to them for pennies.
Then, the developers decided to open a restaurant next to the warehouse, and then a corner store, and then a dollar store, and then a department store. While they’re at it, they thought hey! there are enough people working here now, why not put up a residential building? And so on…
Ofcourse, the extra costs required to service this business park now are very different from what the area was intended for in the first place. So, instead of requiring the Ontario developer to pay their fair share of the cost of extending sewage and water and transit lines to their business park (as some smart cities do), Halifax did nothing and just paid for the extra servicing out of the tax money they collected from other areas.
Because the Ontario developers didn’t have to pay tax for the servicing of their business park, they were able to provide the square footage to walmart and co. at an incredibly low rate, ensuring that walmart (not owned locally) can operate at a very low cost, while the money that should normally go to the city in taxes ends up in their business bank accounts out in Ontario.
Benefit to Halifax = 0.
Even the local owner of, say, a McDonald’s in Bayers Lake doesn’t benefit because they perpetually lease their square footage from the Ontario company, never able to own it. They can be open for 25 years and have nothing to show for it in terms of ownership at the end, with all their lease money going out of province.
Under the current tax structure, the city does not charge owners of business parks like Bayers Lake or Dartmouth Crossing for the services they consume (sewage, roads, public transport, etc.), hence providing an incentive for these mostly out-of-province business conglomerates to suck the city dry of its tax money and destroy local business.
If the city was to impose a service tax on developers in those areas similar to the one imposed on developers of buildings and businesses in the city core, you will see those business park developers in turn raising the lease price for the big box stores on their properties, which would help even the playing field between local businesses and the big-box stores. Furthermore, it will free up some city money to be invested in things that the city needs, as opposed to Halifax being perpetually broke.
I know the current tax reform debate is a contentious one, but I don’t think many will disagree that at least the commercial tax portion of the debate makes enough sense to push forward the suggested reforms for the commercial part.
Well, that’s pretty much what I meant PAS…it’s good for them.
Apparently, they can force record producers to change song lyrics and cover art to meet their decency standards too.
Wal-mart reminds me of Omni Consumer Products from Robocop.
Wohooooo…go Ontario =)
issmat– you’re describing an assessment problem, not a tax problem.
But besides that, “tax reform” as it’s now being sold to the public, does nothing at all to commercial taxes. Even if “tax reform” passes, commercial taxes will remain assessment based. You know that. It’s dishonest to use this argument to plug your political position.
In the words of Penn and Teller in regards to Walmart being evil and bad for business. BULLSHIT. I know everyone hates corporations but how many of you would be out of jobs without them.
I LOVE Wal-Mart. It’s the modern day equivalent to the old-timey freak show. The most horrendous creatures that God shat forth shop at Wal-Mart: Mr. Beetle-Eyes with his uncontrollable rectum, Ms. Bristly Phat, with her crocs and cornrows….ah, lest we forget The Snivel Twins, the most mucus ever produced by two human beings (with the rash to prove it.)
it was their version of cheese
I have friends who do/have worked for Wal mart and get treated like GOLD take breaks as you need them go around THEIR scedule pay for their lunches etc…
I am going to be a dick here…..maybey the places be bought out because of wal mart….could be new wal mart employees!!!
It is WAY more convient to go to one store to purchase everythign then 50 mom and pa stores!
This actually turned into a nice debate.
While I feel awful for the businesses that don’t survive… wait a min, I don’t, they’ve been ripping me off for years, can someone explain to me why I have to pay $7000 for an 18kt gold 0.78ct diamond ring here in NS, where a 1ct diamond on a 21kt cold ring costs $2000 else where?!.. keep in mind, gold is being sold the same price in both markets!
A paid of Levis jeans cost $50 in Halifax shopping centre, while it costs $20 at walmart.
NL Shrimp harvesters just struck a deal with buyers that they will receive 47 CENTS, yes 47 CENTS, per bound to MAKE A PROFIT, why the fuck are stores selling shrimp at $9 a pound?
by the way, distributors refused to pay more than 37 cents, including greedy clearwater and fishermans market on bedford highway, so NL government footed the rest.
NS Lobster fishermen refused to sell us, nova scotians, lobster at $5 a bound when the market was $10 a bound, but when they couldn’t get $3 for it, they wanted our help and give them our $5.
Fuck all those people for all I care, they can all go out of business and relieve us from their thievery. If I can find it cheaper, I’ll buy it cheaper.
My VCR broke, and everywhere I went, cheapest was $70 (Walmart), didn’t buy any. I found one on Kijiji, used that works as good as every single one at stores.
If what I do to save a few dollars is going to put my local store out of business, then my local store can go out of business if it’s not willing to support it’s local market.
As long as walmart supplies it for cheaper, I’ll keep getting it where it’s lowest in price.
Tim, I’m not sure why you believe that commercial taxation isn’t part of the tax reform proposal when it’s clearly noted in the council report submitted by the reform committee to council on June 23. It’s not easy to miss, it’s right there on page number 2. It’s the third of only five recommendations the committee came up with.
The report can be read on the Halifax.ca site (http://www.halifax.ca/council/agendasc/doc…).
So, how am I being ‘dishonest’ by noting the FACT that commercial taxes are under review as part of the tax reform initiative??
Sorry Miles, I understand that it isn’t a very powerful statement. What is powerful though, is that most of WalMart’s competition is much like them and most of the local businesses just don’t give a shit about the environment (save for the odd coffee shop).
“So, how am I being ‘dishonest’ by noting the FACT that commercial taxes are under review as part of the tax reform initiative??”
Because “under review” means, “we’ll pass changes to residential taxation first, then we’ll spend the next four years looking at commercial taxation, and bring something back after that.”
Four years? My Tim, you are optomistic. This is Peter and his gang. It’ll take them four years just to decide on the name of the report, or will that be title. Oops, there goes another couple of years.
Oh oh my bad. We’re talking about taxes. A quick 1-200% increase because we can all afford it.