What is it about D.C. and grocery stores? People have to eat, after all. And given the fact that many District residents do the bulk of their shopping in Maryland and Virginia because of the dearth of grocery stores in their own communities, the city’s anti-grocery mentality makes no sense. This curious phenomena includes not only Mayor Vincent Gray’s recent ham-handed attempts to strong-arm Walmart after the giant retailer announced last November that it planned to open four urban-scale stores in underserved areas of the city. Residents of upscale Cleveland Park have also been fighting efforts to modernize the cramped 1950s-era Giant on Wisconsin Avenue for more than a decade.
Walmart has not requested any subsidies, zoning changes or tax abatements from the city. Its four new stores would all be located in areas where grocery stores are few and far between, replacing a gravel parking lot, a vacant car dealership, dilapidated warehouses, a liquor store and a former public housing complex. They would provide low-cost shopping options in Wards 4, 5, 6 and 7 and create 1,200 new jobs in neighborhoods where unemployment is twice the national average.
Unlike other economic development that has been welcomed at city hall with open arms and an open wallet (i.e. the Nationals Stadium and the Verizon Center), the proposed Walmart stores will directly benefit thousands of low-income D.C. residents at no cost to taxpayers. However, instead of applauding Walmart’s attempt to invest in the future of his One City, Gray gave the company an ultimatum (later disavowed by his economic development aides), threatening to withhold needed permits unless Walmart opened a fifth store in Gray’s neighborhood.
The mayor is also siding with well-fed political activists who are demanding the company sign an 11-page “community benefits agreement” that is essentially an attempt to extort money even though the Arkansas-based retailer has already voluntarily donated more than $1 million to the city, including $400,000 for school breakfasts and $665,000 for the city’s summer youth program.
But the fact that Walmart is willing to build a brand new store stocked with fresh produce and cheap generic drugs east of the Anacostia River, where few other retailers dare to venture, at sites that were previously rejected by discounters Costco and Shoppers Food Warehouse, is reason enough to recommend it. Food snobs who don’t like Walmart are free to shop elsewhere, including the old Giant in Cleveland Park.
