3/20/2006

Walgreens

I was in Missoula last weekend. Saw a Walgreens. And a Wal-Mart. And about a zillion other stores, big and small.

Then I wondered how many of them had to come crawling to the Missoula City Counsel, hat in hands, begging for permission to build.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

They had to jump through more hoops than you can imagine.

Anonymous said...

Undoubtedly, most of them had to go through lots of hoops.

The difference is that Missoula is growing quickly and Great Falls is basically not growing at all. These new retailers really are desperate to get established in markets like Missoula where gross retail sales are growing rapidly year over year.

WolfPack said...

The difference is Great Falls' hoops are known as brick walls by potential new businesses.

Anonymous said...

Indeed, and the extortion is incredible. I think it was Bozeman (or a Bozeman City Councilwoman) who wanted to extract $400,000 from Wal-Mart for affordable housing! I guess because Wal-Mart pays such low wages and those workers can't afford the housing in Bozeman; therefore Wal-Mart should be forced to contribute to an affordable housing fund. I don't know the end result of it all...

Anonymous said...

Wlagreens is breezings into Billings with two stores with nary a problem.