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Activists prepare for anti-Wal-Mart demonstration
By JENNIFER LIBERTO SPRING HILL -- On Saturday, Spring Hill will join the likes of Berkeley, Calif., and San Francisco as it hosts one of the county's first anticorporate protests. And the organizers didn't start small. Their target is the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart. The Coalition for Anti-Urban Sprawl and the Environment is sponsoring a New Orleans-style jazz funeral and entertainment Saturday to protest the soon-to-be-constructed Wal-Mart Supercenter at U.S. 19 and Osowaw Boulevard. Wal-Mart officials could not be reached Thursday for comment on the protest. The event will kick off a boycott/procott, in which the Hernando County Green Party will urge people to shop at local businesses rather than Wal-Mart. "Wal-Mart is anti-American; they are single-handedly responsible for the demise of small American businesses all over this country," CAUSE spokeswoman Arline Erdrich said. Last month, CAUSE filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Wal-Mart, saying that the county violated the state's Sunshine Law when it considered Wal-Mart's development permits for the new supercenter. The group said the public was barred from Development Review Committee meetings during the permitting process. The group wants Wal-Mart's permit revoked and a return to the review process so it can play a greater role. However, construction has already started. Most of the vegetation has been cleared for a 225,000-square-foot building, which is scheduled to open early next year. But Wal-Mart opponents say even if the supercenter is standing long before the case sees the inside of a courtroom, it's never too late to fight the retailing giant. "If they don't venture a lawsuit, they gain nothing, and they have everything to lose here," said Al Norman, an antisprawl urban consultant who started Sprawl-Busters, a group in Greenfield, Mass. The court could deem the Wal-Mart on U.S. 19 illegal, even if it were open, Norman said. That's what happened two weeks ago, in Decorah, Iowa. The Iowa appeals court reversed a lower court ruling, finding that the Decorah City Council illegally approved a rezoning for a Wal-Mart Supercenter, which was built on a flood plain and is scheduled to open next month. Wal-Mart may appeal the decision to Iowa's Supreme Court. CAUSE attorney Ralf Brooks also points to a case recently reaffirmed by the Florida Supreme Court: A $3.3-million luxury complex must be demolished because it violates the Martin County comprehensive plan. Even though this lawsuit names the county, and not Wal-Mart, the corporate giant is no stranger to such legal fights. In 2000, Wal-Mart was sued 4,851 times, or once every two hours, each day of the year, according to an article in USA Today. CAUSE organizers are well aware of the retailer's deep pockets. But Erdrich said that "we can't fight them with money, but we can fight them with public opinion." The protest, in the guise of a jazz-funeral parade, begins Saturday at 2 p.m. on Osowaw Boulevard, near the treatment plant, and ends at the green in front of the Chevron gas station on Tarpon Boulevard and U.S. 19. Entertainment starts at 3 p.m. with Mike McKinley jazz trio and T.C. Carr on harmonica. -- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.
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From today's Hernando Times Letters |
