Wal Mart

More than 100 residents, including dozens of members of a local food and commercial workers' union, attended Wednesday's zoning board hearing to protest a proposed Wal-Mart store. After five hours of testimony, the zoning board decided to postpone a vote on the issue until its meeting this Wednesday. In the last two weeks, dozens of "Just Say No to Wal-Mart" signs have adorned trees and poles throughout the township. On Tuesday, an eight-inch ad in a local newspaper urged residents to attend the zoning hearing.

A controversial proposed Wal-Mart store can come to the township, but the company must meet strict conditions that will help preserve the area's rural character, the supervisors said last night. At a packed meeting in the township building, the supervisors voted, 3-2, to allow the first "big box" store in southern Chester County, but with a twist. One of the conditions stipulates that the "big box" take the form of three smaller buildings. "I have found that the rural lifestyle that was available here was something that I particularly loved . . .," said Supervisors Chairman Richard P.S. "Buzz" Hannum, who has lived in the township all his life.

Wally Lucidi doesn't want to sound cocky, but the Passyunk Avenue jeweler's not too worried about Wal-Mart opening up just a mile or two away on Columbus Boulevard. "I sell 18-carat gold from Italy," he said. "If a person goes to Wal- Mart or Kmart, they aren't going to buy what I have. " Not that people with slightly less refined tastes won't be able to get what they want at Wal-Mart, which also sells gold jewelry. The nation's largest retailer is already training workers for a Jan. 1 opening.

GREEN DAY'S "21st Century Breakdown" is the top-selling CD in America. Wal-Mart is the top CD retailer in America. But you can't buy "Breakdown" at Wal-Mart. What gives? The band says Wal-Mart refused to stock "21st Century Breakdown" because Green Day refused to edit the album for language and content. But, you say, Wal-Mart carries lots of objectionable musical content among its aisles of objectionable merchandise. True, but Green Day's album isn't mass-produced in Chinese sweatshops.

They petitioned politicians to spare the old oak. They even sent a letter to Hillary Clinton. And on Monday afternoon, one of South Jersey's tree lovers called Wal-Mart. Christine Kelley called the headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., to give the nation's largest retailer a piece of her mind about its plans to chop down a majestic 200-year-old oak to make room for a Sam's Wholesale in Washington Township. She was pleasantly surprised when Jeffrey Doss, director of design for Wal- Mart, the store's parent company, answered the phone with some good news: The tree will live!

For years, no one has been able to agree on the best way to make improvements to the section of Route 1 that runs in front of the Longwood Inn as well as the property where Wal-Mart wants to build a store. Now the groups involved are trying to come up with a compromise that can be carried out regardless of whether a Wal-Mart is built at Route 1 and Schoolhouse Road. At Monday's township supervisors' meeting, property owners and representatives of Longwood Gardens, Wal-Mart and citizens' groups agreed to examine alternatives and make a presentation to the board next month.

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, will expand its Southeastern Pennsylvania market later this year by opening a Wal-Mart store in Bucks County. As many as 500 full- and part-time jobs are expected to be created in the move to the Fairless Hills Shopping Center, which also will have a Shop- Rite supermarket and smaller retail stores. A large portion of the existing shopping center on Oxford Valley Road will be torn down, said Tom Verrichia, vice president of Schuster Properties, the development arm of owner Fairless Hills S.C. Associates of Bala Cynwyd.

This is not going to be like the usual disputes over buffer zones and storm-water retention. Nobody here really seems all that interested in philosophical debates about drainage basins or landscaping or berms. Instead, say the residents of this rural southern Chester County community, the forthcoming zoning battle is going to be much more basic. For them, it's the business interests of a gigantic discount chain versus efforts to preserve the quiet character of the land they call home.

Opponents of Wal-Mart and the developers who want to build it are in a tight race, if not to the death, at least to the Planning Board. Democratic council members want to rezone the land for which the superstore is proposed, changing it to office campus and preventing another "big-box" store from coming to Route 41. But the council will have to act fast. If the developers get Planning Board approval for the 120,000-square-foot store before the rezoning is complete, they can build the Wal-Mart anyway.

It's a case of the fish not biting when the fisherman casts the line. So the fisherman tries to hook it again - and again. In this town, the fish still aren't taking the bait. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, has for a third time submitted to the Township Council a bid to build here. The multibillion-dollar Arkansas company has again come carrying promises of jobs and dollars for road improvements. Company officials also point out the real estate taxes that will be pumped into the township and Colonial School District budgets.