Back in February, Kevin noted that Wal-Mart was planning an extremely "green friendly" Wal-Mart store in Vancouver, British Columbia, in an attempt to win city council approval for its new store. It turns out that even though Wal-Mart more than met all the conditions set out by the council, and even though Wal-Mart had won approval of the city's staff and the city's urban design committee, city council soundly rejected their proposal. The editorial board of the Vancouver Sun is livid: [thanks to Dave at London Fog for the pointer]
...Vancouver city council has sent two terrible messages: The city simply isn't open for business and, worse, it will allow ideology to trump fairness and common sense in its efforts to stamp out big business.The Wal-Mart saga is a particularly egregious example of council's disdain for business, city staff and the people of Vancouver. For four long years, Wal-Mart made every effort to ensure the proposed store would have a positive impact on the environment and our economy. Now it's evident that none of that ever mattered.
... There's no evidence that the eight councillors who voted down the Wal-Mart application did so because the retailer failed to meet the requirements of the planning committee. On the contrary, Wal-Mart met or exceeded all expectations and its proposal was endorsed by both city staff and the city's urban design panel.
The only reasonable conclusion, then, is that council rejected the application for purely ideological reasons, because it sees Wal-Mart as the symbol of all that is wrong with corporate America.
Consequences? Lower-income Vancouverites will be worse off. The elitists on Vancouver's city council will reduce both employment and shopping opportunities for them. Also, given the facts reported by the Vancouver Sun, I doubt the story has ended.
Posted by TheEclecticEconoclast on July, 1 2005 at 06:58 AM
