Wal-Mart Wants to Loosen Bible Belt
Wal-Mart is known for supporting and promoting conservative community values. CD’s with explicit lyrics are carried in Wal-Mart only if the artist/label will produce a sanitized version. Magazines like Redbook have their suggestive covers obscured on the rack. Indeed, “Wal-Mart, based in a dry county in Arkansas, forbids drinking at events held at corporate headquarters.”
However, Wal-Mart is not content to make the billions they do with conservative, small-town values. They want to change those values in some conservative communities to make even more.
Twenty-six of Alabama’s 67 counties are dry, and Wal-Mart would like to change that.
Since 2002, business groups have spent upwards of $15 million on campaigns, including professional lobbyists, to persuade voters in some 200 dry towns and 25 dry counties in six Southern states to legalize alcohol sales in stores and restaurants.
Wal-Mart has financed dozens of local elections, contributing from $5,000 to $20,000 a campaign, said Tim Reeves of Beverage Election Specialists, which supports local alcohol referendums.
Are there a lot of people who find Redbook too racy who also want their dry county to go wet?
If they get that upset about Redbook, they could probably use a drink. And if Wal-Mart can make the argument in terms of additional tax revenue, it may work.
Comment by Kathy — August 14, 2006 @ 12:19 pm