Yesterday there was an article in the New York Times about developers wanting to build a Super Wal Mart in Monsey. I have been hearing about this story for some time, and like most communities across the country who despise Wal Mart due to many of its harsh policies and practices, banded together to stop the development of this 215,000 square foot mega store.
The obvious reasons for not wanting a Super Wal Mart or any huge corporate store in your area are many. The obvious number one issue is threat to small business, traffic, pollution and a feeling that Wal Mart does not give back to the community what it takes from it. I personally love and hat Wal Mart at the same time. If I could afford to I would shop at independent stores all the time and stop feeding the big business that owns our politicians. I would love to see the rise of independent book shops, grocery stores, boutiques and neighborhood hardware stores, where everyone knows you by name and cares about the customer. Unfortunately I do not have that luxury, so therefore I have to patronize stores like Trader Joes, Wal Mart and Home Depot, which are slowly ruining the small town structure of rural America one strip mall at a time.
Wal Mart of course, besides coming in to small towns and making main street look like Asbury Park, also gets a lot of flack for its non-union, terrible health plans and moves to fire anyone who does have union organizing tendencies. As a Libertarian I really don’t believe that a company HAS to give health care or let people join a union. But I do believe that the free market eventual controls most harsh practices done by large companies. When companies treat their employees badly etc… grassroots alliances are created to try and boycott, or refuse to allow Wal Marts into their communities.
In Monsey, however, there is a new reason why they CLAIM they do not want Wal Mart here, regardless of the fact that there is a small one already. The community leader’s claims are that they do not want congestion and outside influences entering their community. Both of these claims are semi hypocritical. The road Wal Mart is on is to be avoided anyway(route 59), because it is one of the most congested in Monsey- besides maybe the intersection of Maple ave and 306.
What sort of outside influence does a Wal Mart that sells groceries for rock bottom prices instead of just guns and underwear, bring to the community? I wish they would just tote the party line like every other community and say they are scared of competition, especially due to the fact that kosher grocery stores have a ridiculous mark up. With regards to congestion which is normally a valid idea, no one in the Monsey leadership seems to be telling the contractors to stop building illegal multi family dwellings off of Maple Avenue and 306.
To add some flavor to this article let us look at what outside influences a super Wal Mart will bring and since there is already a regular Wal Mart already- that means that the only added things will be groceries. Since Wal Mart in general does not sell certain magazines due to their soft core pornographic content such as Maxim and FHM one would think that Wal Mart ranks high on their list compared to the regular old Shop Rite and Pathmark which continues to sell such drek.
Wal Mart Super center in Monsey may bring the following outside influences:t
Hey Moishe I have always wanted to taste non-triple washed lettuce, and now we have it at our fingertips.
Vut is dis Tofu, they claim it’s like mun, apikorsos.
Dese Ben and Jerry are Jewish, vy no cholov yisreol.
Tatty can we just try non-pas yisroel bread.
They sell real non-frozen strawberries.
G-d forbid should someone buy real broccoli, the washing is liable to make any baleboostah crack.
Hey look the ketchup bottle says Heinz but it is the same as (insert heimishe brand here that puts their labels over the regular ketchup bottles to make it extra kosher)
Wow these prices are half of what Wesley Kosher charges; we will never go back again.
An added secular music section, hey wait they already have one.
Microwavable meals that do not cost $6 a piece and taste better then rubber.
Open on shabbos may cause people to sin.
Enough room in the aisles for people to move about without by accidentally touching the opposite sex with their oversized …. Shopping carts you sicko.
I hear there are plans for a kosher subway in the entrance of the new Wal Mart and that is way too much secular influence for this town. Although Kosher Castle distinctly sounds like White Castle, but they don’t have sliders.
On a side note, all the grocery stores in Monsey I have found to be a rip off and make frequent trips to Trader Joes in NJ.
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
For the past year or so there have been articles in Mishpacha about the dangers of Wal-Mart coming to town.
They opened one in Miami 2 years ago with a full kosher and kosher meat/deli section and all the kosher shops are still in business.
My issue is that they just don’t come out and say they are scared for their small business. Instead they always take the secular influences route.
maybe i’m just poor, but I think trader joes is overpriced too
I go to local generic ghetto grocery
I am poor, but there are certain things I eat which cost more everywhere else, morning star veggie burgers, cherry tomatoes, energy bars and spaghetti sauce that taste good.
I eat loads of energy bars and at trader joes they are a buck a piece compared with at least $1.50 to $2 everywhere else.
im not familiar with monsey so forgive me if im wrong but arent these the same people who go upstate and spend half the summer in wal-mart
what the secular influence doesnt count if youre in monticello or fallsburg?
“something walmart this way comes”, one of the funniest southpark episodes that pinpoints all the problems on the head. Gotta watch it, it’s a total match for this article. Oh and the new season started last night.
since we’re giving suggestions how about reading “all the power-revolution without illusion” by mark andersen a punk anti manifesto that i think applies to this whole way of thinking
that comment was mine by the way
I sent u this article no? …gd am i an attention whore….wen u coming online?
I remember walk’in round the court square sidewalk
Lookin’ in windows at things I couldn’t want
There’s johnson’s hardware and morgans jewelry
And the ol’ Lee king’s apothecary
They ware the little man
The little man
I go back now and the stores are all empty
Except for an old coke sign from 1950
Boarded up like they never existed
Or renovated and called historic districts
There goes the little man
There goes the little man
Now the court square’s just a set of streets
That the people go round but they seldom think
Bout the little man that built this town
Before the big money shut em down
And killed the little man
Oh the little man
Alan Jackson
Always loved that song. (couldn’t post the rest of the song, the site didnt let)
It is not in any way shape or form WalMart’s problem or fault that the mom and pop stores have failed to recognize the basic economics of buying and selling in volume. It is not WalMart’s problem or fault that they outsell and underprice everything compared to their competition. They came out of white trash hillbilly central to dominate the market. How is it that companies founded in the well developed and supposedly superior northeast failed miserably?
Because WalMart was not as stupid as them. I know, I’ve worked for many of their late deceased competing companies and they were monumentally stocked with morons.
I live in a poor neighborhood and the way overpriced and poorly supported bodegas are and should go out of business if they refuse to adapt. I see plenty of Indian and Chinese families moving in and starting small local chains of convenience stores and making a go of it. Am I to believe they have a special magic multi-generation American citizens don’t?
The magic is that they work hard and smart and put opportunities for success ahead of carping and inaction. That’s how WalMart got places and Ames didn’t.
Suite Potato I agree 100%, take a look at giants who fall to ther giants who are smarter. Microsoft will fall to google, Starbucks will fall to economically priced coffee shops in recession and Kmart is gone. Ames, service merchandise, sears, etc… no brains.
Hiemishe- Alan Jackson rocks. Did not know you were a country fan- how about the song by him gone country, it fits you.
Yes Jenn this is the article.
pathmark is still ok because they dont sell lingerie
yet
But the magazines are covered at Pathmark.
heshman loves complaining more than anything
Complainer- funny because I am not complaining I am merely trying to get a discussion going. I know this week was a bit more serious then normal, I promise next week we are going back to normalcy, no more serious stuff.
The hubby wants to know where the trader joe’s in jersey is. he thinks they have good pizza dough.
ha, there was a woman on the news complaining about how she doesn’t like walmart becuase they sell lingerie and she goes there with her son…
dunno if she realized how foolish she sounded.
for crying out loud, if you’re taking your son to go get a bike, or to buy shampoo, the only way he can find the lingerie is if he freakin looks for it! it’s on the other side of the store!
really.
You know that song by Gretchen Wilson “I’m a redneck woman? She sings about buying her lingerie at Wal Mart.
Well I don’t see any rabbis banning the obscenely huge mall down the road- God knows I look at the larger then life ads in the Victorias secert.
Queens also fought off the coming of Wal Mart and succeeded, but unlike these Monsey community leaders their fight was by local business’s who were not smart enough to compete with Wal Mart and its huge buying volume.
Plenty of business’s have succeeded, this whole Wal Mart thing reminds me of Hank Reardons steel company in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand- one of the greatest books ever written. Everyone couldn’t compete so they asked the government to get involved and make the market FAIR-
To those who are capitalists and Republicans- I assume Republicans since you are predominantly frum and usually fail to recognize your own parties faults- to be anti Wal Mart for business reasons- would put you into a socialist economic category.
To try and limit a big business from coming into your town because you are scared of outside influence is a load of crap- it would have done better for PR if they would have been anti-big business like they are but don’t want to say. You could have gotten the folks from Vermont (arguably the biggest anti Wal Mart enclave) to come down and help you out.
I can just imagine a bunch of chassidim with a bunch of Yuppie/ ex hippies from Burlington protesting on route 59.
I have heard of this wondrous place you call “Trader Joes” – where is the Jersey one close to Monsey? I suppose I could always look it up myself but it’s so much easier just to ask…
I am glad they have stalled that Super-Walmart project (for now, it’ll be back I’m sure.) The traffic in Monsey is horrendous already; this Super Walmart would bring the commute down 59 from Spring Valley to Airmont up from 45 minutes to at least an hour!
Ok so the Trader Joes is on Route 17 right before the Midland exit going north. It comes up real fast on you its right near the Garden State Parkway exit- so its close, maybe 20 minutes.
Go on their site type in your zipcode and it comes up as the closest one to you. Oh and 90% of the stuff is kosher- its sick man.
Trader Joes has seriously the best food…and its kosher the gingerbread cookies (sacreligious i know) are heaven…
Useful site. Thank you!!
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