Wal-Mart will do what it will do

The question about Wal-Mart is not whether Douglas County needs another one, but whether anyone could stop it from coming.

Land proposed for the Wal-Mart is presently zoned for a casino, and a lot of folks who make their opinions known in the pages of The Record-Courier, think a casino would be an improvement.

But that wasn't the reception property owner Butch Peri got when he proposed the casino there.

A lot of folks have expended a lot of energy trying to stop Wal-Mart from coming to communities. Las Vegas enacted an ordinance to stop Super Wal-Marts from selling groceries in order to protect unionized supermarket workers. The law was overturned by the courts.

It has been a year since the first Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in La Quinta, Calif., despite the best efforts of the Teamsters and a massive series of stories by the L.A. Times.

It took a hurricane in Florida to finally slow down the massive chain's construction schedule.

Wal-Mart is capitalism at its stripped down core and its strengths are capitalism's strengths. And there is nothing like unbridled success to attract criticism.

Like McDonalds at one time, no one would admit they ate there, but the restaurants kept multiplying. So with Wal-Mart. No one wants to admit they shop there and yet the parking lot is always full. People go to Wal-Mart because they will find what they want for the lowest price.

One day, Wal-Mart will falter, a victim of its own success. But until then, Wal-Mart will dominate the market and that includes potentially locating a store in Gardnerville.