GILROY
– Anti-Wal-Mart activists and the Girl Scouts went head to head
this weekend, competing for the interest of neighborhood grocery
store shoppers.
GILROY – Anti-Wal-Mart activists and the Girl Scouts went head to head this weekend, competing for the interest of neighborhood grocery store shoppers.
Girl Scouts wanted money for their popular cookies, the organization’s premier annual fund raiser. Anti-Wal-Mart folks wanted signatures, to fill out a petition that seeks a vote of the people before the retail giant opens a super-sized version of itself in Gilroy.
The new store would mark the first Supercenter to open in Northern California.
“Everybody was real receptive to signing the petition,” said Bruce Morasca, the group’s spokesman. “There were only a few people who seemed they didn’t care.”
Morasca did not have a final tally for signatures. However, the Morgan Hill grocery clerk and former City Council candidate said he worked a two-hour morning shift Saturday and got 50 signatures.
Petitioners worked in front of Nob Hill and Safeway supermarkets on First Street, Morasca said. The group will canvass neighborhood grocery stores again next weekend.
On March 15, the group is due to bring the petition – it hopes with 1,000 to 2,000 signatures – to City Council.
The group wants City Council to delay the approval of Wal-Mart’s Supercenter store until:
• an independent study on the economic impact to Gilroy workers and existing businesses is conducted
• a “full” disclosure of traffic impacts, especially to Sixth Street, is produced
• a vote on the relocation of Wal-Mart is taken at a general election.
Wal-Mart is trying to move from its existing Arroyo Circle location into the Pacheco Pass Center at U.S. 101 and Highway 152, near Costco and Lowe’s.
The new 220,000-square-foot store would sell low-cost groceries in addition to its regular discount items. For months, grocery worker unions and mom-and-pop grocery stores in Gilroy and around the Bay Area have lobbied to keep Supercenters from setting up in Northern California.
Although several Supercenters are proposed around Northern California, none have been approved.
Gilroy, with a business-friendly City Council and two massive big box retail complexes waiting to be filled, is poised to get the first one.
City Council delayed approving the project March 1, asking the city staff and the retailer to jump through a number of hoops first.
