ADE Editorial - At Least Consider a Community Department Store

Here.

The 'guts' of the editorial appear below.

Nevertheless, we’ve heard many people — angry that the village board halted the rezoning process for the would-be Wal-Mart site — say they would boycott such a community store. They say it is being proposed by the same people who opposed Wal-Mart. There’s some truth to that. Although support for the store is more broad-based than such critics realize, the Save Saranac Lake Coalition, which vehemently opposes Wal-Mart, is involved in promoting the idea as a smaller alternative to the 121,000-square-foot Supercenter Wal-Mart wants to build.

We, however, are not categorically opposed to Wal-Mart. The way we see it is this: Anyone who really wants a new department store in Saranac Lake, like we do, should be willing to seriously consider the pros and cons of any party that steps up to the plate with a proposal to establish one — from Wal-Mart to a grassroots group.

The second paragraph is the key. Many opponents of Wal-Mart were/are willing to compromise if the store was located downtown and was smaller. CARD is not only unwilling to discuss compromises on Wal-Mart size and location, they are unwilling to discuss or listen to ANY viable alternative on retail development.

This is the Committee for Advancement of Retail Development? How does not listening to other ideas on retail development advancing retail development? They need to face facts. The are the Committee for Advancement of a 121,000 sq ft Wal-Mart Located on Lake Flower Avenue....let's see...that would be CA121kWMLLFA. Yeah that is a mouthful.