The ballots have been counted in “Question 300” — and Wal-Mart is still the big loser in Glendale, Arizona. Last December, Wal-Mart’s lawyer in Glendale, Jordan Rich Rose, was quoted in the Arizona Republic as saying: “If the (city) council is acting in the best interests of their constituents, then they shouldn’t be afraid of a referendum.” Wal-Mart was responding to the Council’s vote to require any large retailer on a 39 acre site at 51st avenue to close at 10 pm and not exceed 92,000 s.f. in size. This would make a proposed Wal-Mart supercenter impossible. So Wal-Mart and the developer put themselves on the city ballot, and as we indicated a couple of days ago (see Newsflash below), the initial vote results confirmed Wal-Mart’s worst fears: they lost 60% to 40% — a death blow to their plans in Glendale. On Wednesay of this week, Glendale election officials indicated that one of two tabulation machines had not recorded all the “early” ballots that had been cast. 3,273 “undervotes” were found — votes that were cast, but not tabulated. So the city then counted all of these votes by hand. The final results of both early and election day ballots was about the same: 10,339 “yes” votes (60%) to support the limits on development passed by the City Council, and 6,797 votes “No” (40%) that supported Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart and the developer reportedly spent more than a quarter of a million dollars on this referendum, including the mailing of a special video to 20,000 households in Glendale. Maybe they should have sent popcorn too.
The people of Glendale, Arizona have spoken. Wal-Mart’s founder, Sam Walton, wrote in his autobiography “that if some community, for whatever reason, doesn’t want us in there, we aren’t interested in going in and creating a fuss. I encourage us to walk away from this kind of trouble…” Had Wal-Mart’s management today heeded Walton’s words and walked away, they could have saved themselves a box-load of money, and months of wasted effort. The clear indication from City government was that they wanted restrictions on size and hours of operation on that location. Wal-Mart chose to ignore the Council, and ignore the advice of its founder, and create a fuss. Now the fuss has come back to bite them, and they have given local residents and the City Council a victory over the world’s biggest corporate retailer. It turns out that the only one who should have been afraid of a referendum, was Wal-Mart.
