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BATTLEMART
Strategies and Tactics or FightingWal-Mart in Your Community
 
Fighting Wal-Mart
An Introduction
You are reading this either because you want to stop a Wal-Mart rom coming to your community, or you want to pre-vent an existing Wal-Mart rom expanding or moving to anew Supercenter site. We’re going to help you ght thatbattle. This year, many Wal-Mart stores will get deeated orseriously delayed by citizen’s groups. Anyone can ght Wal-Mart and win. In his book 
Slam Dunk-ing Wal-Mart 
, activist Al Norman writes,
Some o the best people I have met in my travelsare people who had no ormal background incommunity organizing. They will say, “I’m just ahousewie,” or “I just own a small business in town.”  And then they will go out and blow the oppositionaway.
 This book will give you a brie overview o how to beginyour ght against Wal-Mart. These tactics and strategieshave been used by site-ghters across the country to pre-vent Wal-Mart rom coming to or expanding in a town. There is no one “right way” to stop a Wal-Mart, but thereare common strategies that i employed will give you thebest possible chance o success. You can beat Wal-Mart– you just have to know where they’re vulnerable.Remember that a Wal-Mart store is never a done deal, andevery Goliath has its vulnerabilities. Every community isunique, and you, the citizens, know your community bet-ter than any chain retailer ever could. Local ocials areunique, local zoning codes dier, local parcels o land pres-ent unique opportunities and challenges. These are justsome o your advantages.  This battle can get hot. Neighbor will turn against neigh-bor over this issue; even discord within amilies is not un-usual. This issue literally “hits you where you live.” Thereare many people in your town who will want a Wal-Mart,and or economics reasons, can only ocus on getting thecheapest bargain they can nd. You should expect strongopposition locally. Oten Wal-Mart and their developer willhire consultants to organize supporters in your town It takes a village to beat a Wal-Mart. Your village can be thenext one to do it.
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STEP 1:
Form a Citizens GroupIt may take a village to beat a Wal-Mart—but that village is motivat-ed by one passionate person.You need a vehicle locally to getyour anti Wal-Mart message outto the public: i there is no exist-ing local neighborhood associa-tion or citizen’s group already upand running, create a new one.Include neighbors, clergy, educators, union members, re-tirees, ormer public ocials, merchants, etc. Be as broad-based as possible. Your core group can do well with asew as 12 people. The steering committee needs to meetat least weekly duringa campaign. The largergroup can meet less o-ten, but should be con-nected by email statusreports weekly.
1. Form A Citizens Group
Starting a Citizens Group
• Give your new group an upbeat name like “Our Town First”, which implies that the homeowners,taxpayers, and citizens o Our Town come rst,not the out-o-town developers and their out-o-town corporate retailers. No need to have thewords “Wal-Mart” in the title. • Try to create an “all walks o lie” group that drawsrom civic, religious, and education communities,as well as rom dierent neighborhoods and age-ranges, etc. You want to be as diverse as possible.• You don’t need to have non-prot status, just goto a local bank, open up an account and get anIRS number or the bank account, then beginsoliciting donations.• Your group should begin meeting in living rooms,not in public places. You need to be able to talk strategy in a private setting. 
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