The "Keep Wal-Mart Out" refrain is familiar and understandable, but why do certain communities have problems with, say, a Starbucks?
By BILL VIRGIN
Seattle Post-Intelligencer COLUMNISTWal-Mart. McDonald's. Starbucks.
Three very large, very successful American retailing chains, generators of jobs and taxable sales for their communities. Who wouldn't want to have one as part of their local business mix?
Lots of people, as it turns out.
That some communities would be happier to exile McDonald's to the interstate exits is hardly news, given the attitudes held by some about fast-food joints. And Wal-Mart these days seems to have as much political baggage in its inventory as it does actual merchandise.
As appalled as it might be to be lumped in with such companies as those, Starbucks now finds that it, too, is dealing with community disdain -- although sometimes on markedly different grounds.
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