Jack Smiles column

Friday, February 10, 2012

Wilkes-Barre, Scranton and NEPA Garage Sales

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If not Wal-Mart, what?

Sunday December 06, 2009 | 12:00 AM

Jack Smiles jsmiles@psdispatch.com

My daughter is going to hate me for this, but here goes.

The opposition to a proposed Wal-Mart in Exeter is downright comical at times. Take the letter to the editor that lamented that Exeter is a good place to raise a family.

What? Exeter won’t be a good place to raise a family if there’s a Wal-Mart?

And traffic?

There’s always traffic and there is always going to be more. Before the land where Wal-Mart would go was cleared there were over 200 trailer homes on those 15 acres. If each, like a typical American home, had two vehicles, that’s 400 in and out everyday. Why do you think PennDOT put a traffic signal there?

Opponents say Wal-Mart would devastate the small businesses on the Avenue. I counted 20 empty storefronts or commercial buildings on the Avenue in Wyoming and Exeter, none of which are empty because of Wal-Mart. And I didn’t count another half dozen or so storefronts which were given up long ago and converted to living space.

I live in Wyoming. Over the years on or near the Avenue within a couple blocks of my home I’ve seen an imported meat shop, a cheesesteak joint, breakfast/lunch diner, two pizza restaurants, video rental, beauty salon, hardware store, jewelry store, coffee shop/newsstand (twice), yoga studio, and antique shop come and go with no impact by Wal-Mart. That’s just off the top of my head and within walking distance of my house. Up and down the Ave many more examples can be found.

Most of the small businesses which do exist on or near the Avenue on the West Side have nothing to fear from Wal-Mart and most of them told me so when I wrote a story about the potential impact in May.

I went into 16 businesses on the West Side asking if it they thought Wal Mart would hurt them. Of the 16 only three feared Wal-Mart could drive them out of business. I got a funny reaction from several of the business owners who said they weren’t worried about their own businesses, but about the guy down the street, who said the same thing.

Most of the businesses that survive on or near the Avenue on the West Side are restaurants which could only be helped by increased traffic. Others that thrive are niche businesses, which are already surviving the malls. Esposito’s Shoes and Sickler’s Bike Shop are two examples. Ed Esposito, by the way, isn’t against Wal-Mart.

There’s this crazy notion that Wal-Mart is going to ruin the West Side’s historical, small town atmosphere.

Wyoming and Exeter are good places to live, but the downtowns, such as they are, are not Jim Thorpe. Wal-Mart can’t ruin something that doesn’t exist in the first place.

At the last Exeter meeting, Denny Peters, of the Berwick-based Peters Consultants Inc., brought in by Exeter First as a consultant said the proposed Wal-Mart will be about 151,000 square feet with about six acres of parking. “That’s not very aesthetic and pleasing compared to what you have in the vicinity and adjacent properties,” he said.

Maybe not, but it’s a heck of a lot more aesthetic and pleasing than the 15 acres of weeds we’ve got there now.

Peters said he was left with one lingering question: “Why do they want to put a Wal-Mart on Wyoming Avenue?” The Wal-Mart opponents applauded when Peters detailed how he came to repeatedly ask that question when reviewing the relevant documents.

Hmmm? A lingering question? He repeatedly came back to it and they applauded?

I know this isn’t the case, but its sounds as though they are implying that Wal-Mart has some sinister, mysterious reason for wanting to build in Exeter.

What, is the store going to be, a front for an Iranian nuke or something?

What are they talking about?

Why do they want to put a Wal-Mart on Wyoming Avenue?

I’ll take a stab at that one: to sell stuff and make money.

The land where Wal-Mart will go, if it comes to that, is zoned M2, or light industrial. The owners of the land requested the borough change it to B3, commercial, so they can sell it to Wal-Mart.

Peters called that spot zoning, because the proposed zoning change was not designed to benefit Exeter as a whole, but rather the economic interests of the individual property owners of that tract of land.

Granted, the sellers are going to make money, but how does having the land zoned for industrial use, which is a leftover from mining days, “benefit the surrounding neighborhoods.”

What, do they want a factory there? Show me a factory anywhere on Rt. 11 from West Pittston to Plymouth.

A couple months back I wrote this: Like where does Exeter First get off telling people who willingly and freely take jobs at Wal-Mart that they are too stupid to know they are being exploited. I never knew a Wal-Mart employee who applied to work there with a gun to his or her head.

Exeter First sent me a nasty letter, not for publication, they said. But it was okay to post the same thing on their website calling me a liar in public.

They said they “respect” Wal-Mart workers.

Oh really? If they respect them why do they want to stop 200 Wal-Mart jobs in Exeter?

Wal-Mart may not pay enough to satisfy Exeter First, but it pays a lot better than 15 acres of weeds.