The Janesville City Council refused to scrap their license quota to grant corporate heavyweight Wal-Mart a liquor license. Wal-Mart will now have to wait for a license to become available through attrition, buy the license from another holder or wait for Janesville to grow by another 3,500 people. I was surprised by the decision only because the trend to cowtow to special interests in the name of economic growth has been overwhelmingly popular among our civic leaders.
One of the more interesting comments regarding this came from Wal-Mart spokesperson Lisa Nelson, she said,” the city should have figured Wal-Mart needed a license and kept one in reserve.”
Wow. What else should the city be doing for Wal-Mart? That remark would lead me to guess that’s how Wal-Mart deals with other cities and expects special treatment whether leaders have been put on Wal-Marts payroll or not. Someone dropped the ball at Wal-Mart and they will lose thousands of dollars a day without that license.
The only remaining disappointment I have with the council on this issue is their lack of imagination. Why they could not create a new (expensive) license for retail warehouse stores like Sam’s is beyond me. With a Janesville only tax per case or bottle, it is not an unreasonable idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment