Wal-Mart's California Supercenters delayed by environmental suits
By: JIM WASSERMAN - Associated Press | ∞
SACRAMENTO -- As Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., tries to plant dozens of new Supercenters in California, lawyers aligned with opposition groups the company calls fronts for labor unions and competitors are using California's tough environmental laws to stall the nation's largest retailer.
From rural Northern California to the crowded south, a handful of lawyers have sued more than 30 cities that approved the 200,000-square-foot combination grocery and department stores, claiming that local officials hungry for sales taxes have miscalculated their environmental consequences.
In many cases, these suits have been filed on behalf of obscure, often-secretive, community groups that have few known members. Some of them have been backed by the labor unions leading an anti-Wal-Mart fight in California, while others have few apparent sources of money.
They're delaying the opening of some stores by months or years and slowing Wal-Mart's plan to build up to 40 new Supercenters in a state that's one of the company's few major U.S. growth opportunities. The suits also come at a time when the unions representing grocery store workers, primary the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Wal-Mart's competitors are worried about the effects of the low-price behemoths in California.
Last year, rival grocery store chains locked out their union workers in Southern California as they attempted to negotiate new contracts that would allow the companies to better compete against Wal-Mart's lower wages. That prompted a 4 1/2-month strike that caused losses of at least $300 million for the rival chains.
The suits haven't stopped the company from opening any stores, said Peter Kanelos, a company spokesman. "All they've done is delay the stores."
At least seven attorneys throughout California have filed lawsuits that claim the new stores violate the California Environmental Quality Act, a strict 1970 law signed by former Gov. Ronald Reagan. The law, which is frequently used by development opponents in California to force delays, drive up costs and discourage developers, has tougher requirements for analyzing environmental impacts than most other states in which Wal-Mart operates.
While not all the lawsuits filed on behalf of groups such as Maintain Our Desert Environment, Communities Against Blight and Citizens for Sensible Traffic have prevailed, Wal-Mart has so far opened only three Supercenters in California. Many other stores approved by California cities are tied up in the lawsuits.
While Texas has more than 200 and Florida more than 100, California has only three of Wal-Mart's 1,700 Supercenters nationwide. Another three are under construction in California.
Craig N. Beardsley, a Bakersfield lawyer who has dueled with the anti-Wal-Mart forces, said, "Their whole purpose is to delay, delay, delay, cause turmoil and hope to get Wal-Mart to go away."
Beardsley represents one of California's biggest developers, Bakersfield-based Castle & Cooke Inc., which saw its local Wal-Mart Supercenter halted last year during construction. Its four blank walls and roof now stand next to other thriving newly opened stores.
"Maybe two years from now we will build a store," Beardsley said.
A judge in Bakersfield sided with a law firm that has filed nine lawsuits against Wal-Mart's Supercenter proposals in the Central Valley. The firm's attorneys argued that the city underestimated traffic and air pollution impacts of two Supercenters, as well as potential physical decay citywide as Wal-Mart caused other businesses to close and leave shopping centers vacant.
The first-of-its-kind ruling on physical decay -- backed by a state appeals court -- has thrown up even higher environmental hurdles for California cities considering Wal-Mart Supercenters.
It's also encouraged opponents of Wal-Mart Supercenters in other states, said Stockton attorney Steve Herum, who challenged the two Bakersfield Supercenters and nine others.
Beardsley and Wal-Mart say such lawsuits in California are being backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which is fighting Wal-Mart's entry into the state's grocery market and fearing it will put downward pressure on wages and put stores where its members work out of business.
"No one will admit anything and I couldn't swear on a stack of bibles that that's the way it is," Beardsley said. "But we all believe that to be true."
The UFCW, a 1.4 million-member union of grocery store workers, is one of Wal-Mart's biggest foes nationally, claiming that nonunion Supercenters with prices estimated at 17 to 20 percent lower than other stores threaten their jobs. The union's Web sites are filled with anti-Wal-Mart sentiment and the union's members show up at California's city halls to oppose Supercenter plans.
Union spokeswoman Jill Cashen acknowledged the union backed "four or five lawsuits in California" but said there are another 25 or 30 suits in which UFCW isn't involved. "The fact is there are many people in every community who are concerned about their expansion. We're certainly not alone. We're part of a broader movement of people from lots of different walks of life and motivations."
Typically, California's anti-Supercenter lawsuits are filed on behalf of a local community group that often doesn't disclose who belongs or where it gets its funding for the court challenge.
"Right now some of the people in this group want to remain anonymous," said Brad Morgan, a businessman in Selma who heads the anti-Wal-Mart group, Save Our Selma.
Morgan, who said a Supercenter could cause business failures through his city, also declined to say how much money that group has raised.
"We've had other CEQA battles and we've dealt with other citizens groups," Beardsley said. "They're proud to stand up and say what they are, like the Sierra Club. You can negotiate with them. With Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control, you haven't a clue who they are."
Under the CEQA law, one person who testified against the project during a city planning commission or city council meeting, can be a community group for purposes of a legal challenge.
Herum declined to say who pays for the suits and that he's never represented a union in 25 years of practicing law.
But "if my interests happen to align with the labor union, so what?" Herum said, adding that Supercenters have potential to "destroy the economic future of the Central Valley."
Wal-Mart, Herum said, is just attacking its opponents because it can't win in court.
Company spokesman Kanelos disagreed, saying the company respects California law and its legitimate use.
"Our concern is that there is no one watching the abuse of CEQA by interest groups whose interest in environmental protection is limited to their own political agenda," Kanelos said.
On the Net:
United Food and Commercial Workers Union: http://www.ufcw.org
Wal-Mart: http://www.walmart.com
Herum, Crabtree, Brown: http://www.herumcrabtree.com
Jones and Beardsley, P.C.: http://www.jonesbeardsley.com
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