Community Lawsuit Halts Walmart Construction

Posted on August 28, 2012 by jway

Yesterday, construction of a Walmart Supercenter in Burbank, California came to a screeching halt.  A court injunction was issued, preventing Walmart from moving forward with construction until a lawsuit filed by three local residents is resolved.

The ruling comes as a major victory for Burbank residents and conciliation to Los Angeles residents, who have been involved in a long and public fight to keep Walmart from entering historic Chinatown until it can provide quality jobs and meet the demands of community members.

The lawsuit, filed in May, will require the city to reassess whether the Walmart project will cause “significant harm to local traffic and businesses.”  At very least, the court injunction will likely delay the store’s opening, scheduled for mid-to-late 2013.

“We’re happy we can shine a light on Walmart’s actions and the need to follow the development rules in our community. We hope this ruling gives our city the time necessary to seriously consider the significant negative impacts we feel Walmart would have on our city businesses and residents,” said Shanna Inglasbee, who is among those that filed the lawsuit, in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.

The court injunction is yet another example of the challenges that Walmart’s expansion will likely face at every turn until it begins to respect the wishes of communities and provide jobs that pay a living-wage.

Comments

  • Anonymous

    Power to the people. NOT the corporations!

  • Anonymous

    It’s about time Wal Mart is trying to get it so employees make the same wages here as to where their junk comes from. They want to lower the standard of living for all and we subsidize their employees with food stamps and little or no health care so when an emplyee gets sick or hurt guess who foots the bills ( suckers)

  • Stand up

    Walmart has ruined communities all over Indiana! They destroy small businesses in rural communities and lower the wage standards! Don’t let it happen to your community!

  • William

    Hallelujah! Someone is standing up to corporate bottom feeders. Hopefully my community can repeat that encouraging story

  • Anonymous

    Palmdale Ca Walmart Supercenter been took our Vallarta Supermarkets Customer away from Us for the Customer to Shop at Palmdale Ca Walmart Supercenter it is time for East Palmdale Walmart get rid of the East Palmdale Ca Low Price Walmart Grocery Department so we can be Busy at Palmdale Ca Vallarta Supermarkets so all Vallarta Supermarkets Employee get more Hour so Vallarta Supermarkets Employee can pay their Bill on time, I do work over at Vallarta Supermarkets Part Time and I do make $8.25 an Hour

    Thank You Very Much From Tom P Noonan.

    • http://www.facebook.com/doug.mcdougal1 Doug McDougal

      The prices, selection and quality are far better at Vallarta.

  • leo van heise

    The Federal Trade Comission should stop Walmart now! Walmart is building a Monopoly That will damage all other Grocery stores or even cause many stores to close.

  • leo van heise

    It is now time for cities and towns to have a public vote if they want a Walmart or Walmart Grocery in their Neighborhood.. Do not leave it up to your city or Town Goverment THE PEOPLE SHOULD VOTE!

    • Anonymous

      The people vote every time they go to the store to shop. If they didn’t like the lower prices, then they would go to the union grocery stores and pay more. This how the free market works. Picking winners and losers is how socialism works. The long term success of Wal-Mart proves that they have a winning system. You guys are wanting the poor to have to pay more for their goods so the union bosses can get their money.

      • Bill_Ch

        floridanativee said, “The long term success of Wal-Mart proves that they have a winning system.”

        Actually, it proves they *had* a winning system when they built stores in under-served areas away from sparsely populated areas. Now that those locations are practically exhausted, there are having less success when it comes to well-served, densely populated regions. Local residents are much less likely to abandon their local stores to visit one of the lowest-rated national chains – even if it means saving a few cents.

        I doubt that most people want “the poor to have to pay more for their goods so the union bosses can get their money.” One could turn that around and ask, “Why should the local residents accept traffic, noise, light pollution, and infrastructure costs so that the Waltons can line their pockets?”

      • Anonymous

        Wal-Mart continues to build new stores and has developed a smaller store
        for different markets. The notion that their store sites has been
        exhausted is just funny. The unions were saying that back when they had
        less than 2,000 stores. Now they have over 4,000 (in US). If the local
        residents don’t want a Wal-Mart or any other big box store, they can
        elect folks to keep them out. This is how America works. Having the
        unions artificially keep them out only because the union bosses don’t
        get a piece of the consumers money isn’t the American way. If Wal-Mart
        was unionized, do you really think the unions would care about the
        noise, light pollution and the other things you mentioned? It is all
        about money on either side. If the union comes in and gets higher pay to
        compensate for the union dues, that is passed along to the consumers.
        This means the poor must pay higher for the union bosses perks. The
        Walton’s have given away Billions of dollars in charitable
        contributions. I had a friend who received over a million dollars of
        treatment all for free at their 11 story hospital in Little Rock.

      • hostindiana

        “I had a friend who received over a million dollars of treatment all for free at their 11 story hospital in Little Rock.”
        That explains it.

      • headbone

        Yes they give away billions of dollars that shuld be paid to their employees. Think about it. Go to walmartwatch.com if u would like to be educated on the evil Walmart!

      • Anonymous

        That website is union owned and only presents one side of the argument. Nobody has to work there. Slavery in the US was banned 150 years ago. Wal-Mart provides cheaper goods and groceries to hundreds of millions of people. This has greatly reduced the number of unionized groceries and why the union bosses are so mad. Less unionized grocers means less money for them. The unions have spent $100′s of millions on trying to unionize Wal-Mart with no success in America. That money could have been better spent by the employees instead of wasting it on a lost cause.

      • headbone

        u get what u pay for. support Americans not Chinese! Another Unoin basher. Who r these Union bosses?

      • Anonymous

        The union bosses will be the ones in the suits making $250,000 a year.

  • headbone

    Walmart for years has been squashing the small business owner with their chinese products. I’m sure all of you know that they pay their employees low wages and teach them how to also obtain welfare money and food stamps and health care from their state because of them being in such a low wage scale. A friend of mine got a job at one and one of the first things he was shown was a film of why they don’t want to be union. Little did they know he was a union worker during the day just trying to make a few more dollars on the side and at walmart thats what it means a few! I will bet Sam Walton has rolled over in his grave many times because of the action of his children. He was after all a Real American!!

  • RandomHobo

    These pixels give me an erection. time for my daily dosage of fap

  • Emperor Sex

    I will bump RandomHobo’s topic on this

  • Emperor Sex

    You’re all pussies