The world's largest retailer appears interested in extracting more profits from our local economy. Walmart has requested that Delray Beach rezone the old Ralph Buick property on Federal Highway in order to open a second store in our Village by the Sea.

A second Walmart store would have many negative impacts on neighborhoods of southeast Delray and the entire city, including the following:

 - Walmart funnels money out of the local economy: for every $1.00 spent at a national chain store like Walmart, $0.86 leaves the state (Jeffrey Gangemi, “Buy Local--With Town Currency”)

 - Walmart would pay Delray Beach about $150,000 in yearly taxes for the second store, a small sum compared to the $83,000,000 in yearly sales generated by an average Walmart store (Snopes, "How Big is Wal-Mart?")

 - If 86% of Walmart sales revenue were to leave Delray, that would equate to $72,000,000 leaving our community every year

 - Walmart’s annual turnover of hourly workers is over 50% (PBS, "Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town")

 - A Walmart store with 200 workers costs taxpayers about $420,000 per year in hidden costs, such as Medicaid, children’s health insurance, free school lunches, and housing assistance (Allen Long, "The Branding Crisis at Wal-Mart")

 - Walmart’s business model is extremely oil intensive, contributing to the likelihood of more oil disasters around the world (common sense)