As corporate chains have taken over much of the retail economy, they’ve left the American landscape littered with dead malls, vacant strip developments, out-dated outlet centers, and empty big box superstores.… Read More
Two years ago, a group of independent restaurant owners in Tucson, Arizona stopped thinking of themselves as competitors and launched a collective effort to counter the rapid expansion of chain restaurants. They formed an organization, Tucson Originals, and pooled resources for group promotion and purchasing. Their success inspired the creation of a national independent restaurant network that hopes to seed similar local alliances in cities across the country. … Read More
After a 1989 earthquake destroyed virtually all of its central business district, the city of Santa Cruz, California adopted the Downtown Recovery Plan (DRP), a comprehensive policy for rebuilding the downtown in accordance with several community goals. A decade later, many of these objectives have been met. Downtown Santa Cruz is a healthy, pedestrian-oriented mix of commercial, residential, and public uses. … Read More
Wal-Mart already operates twenty stores in Maine, including three supercenters, and ranks as the fourth largest employer in this state of 1.2 million people. But that’s not enough. Wal-Mart wants to open supercenters, which combine general merchandise with a full supermarket, up and down the coast. This would enable the company to become the dominant, if not only, retailer in many of Maine’s communities. … Read More
Starbucks expected few hurdles when it sought city approval to open a fifth store in Evanston, Illinois earlier this year. That all changed when twenty neighborhood residents showed up at the Zoning Board meeting to voice their opposition. … Read More
In September, Wal-Mart was hit with three separate charges of predatory pricing. Government officials in Wisconsin and Germany accused the retailer of pricing goods below cost with an intent to drive competitors out of the market. In Oklahoma, Wal-Mart faces a private lawsuit alleging similar illegal pricing practices. … Read More
As the story above suggests, Wal-Mart routinely engages in predatory pricing. But the company would prefer not to break the law in the process. To this end, Wal-Mart has joined with Murphy Oil in an effort to repeal a Florida law that prohibits predatory pricing among gasoline retailers.
The two companies financed a "consumer" group, the Coalition for Lower Gas Prices, which contends the Motor Fuel Marketing Practices Act costs Florida consumers $150 million annually in higher gas prices. … Read More
A judge is expected to rule within weeks on whether a lawsuit filed by four independent video stores against Blockbuster Video and seven Hollywood studios may be certified as a class action suit. The suit charges Blockbuster and the studios with attempting to fix prices, a violation of the Sherman Act and California state law. The suit was filed last year in a Texas federal court. … Read More
In September, California Governor Gray Davis vetoed a bill that would have clarified state law to require that all retailers with a physical presence in the state collect sales tax on internet transactions. … Read More
