Why are our taxes subsidizing extravagant corporate weapons retailers?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why are our taxes subsidizing extravagant corporate weapons retailers?

«‹›2 »

Tezzor: Jul 29, 2013; Can't post for 3 years!

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2012/08/why-have-so-many-cities-and-towns-given-away-so-much-money-bass-pro-shops-and-cabelas/2906/

quote:

Why Have So Many Cities and Towns Given Away So Much Money to Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's?

The astonishing story of how the nation's two largest hunting and fishing specialty stores convinced small town America to pay for their expansions.

BOSSIER CITY, LA � When Bill Winkler opened his small archery shop, he was prepared to compete against businesses large and small � but not against a government-financed competitor.

"The day Bass Pro opened here in Bossier, the number of arrows I sold dropped off by 50 percent," says Winkler.

A Bass Pro Shop opened in Bossier City in 2005 after city officials promised to give the retailer $38 million to pay for the construction of the 106,000-square-foot store in this Red River community.

Such deals are commonplace.

Both Bass Pro Shops and its archrival, Cabela�s, sell hunting and fishing gear in cathedral-like stores featuring taxidermied wildlife, gigantic fresh-water aquarium exhibits and elaborate outdoor reproductions within the stores. The stores are billed as job generators by both companies when they are fishing for development dollars. But the firms� economic benefits are minimal and costs to taxpayers are great.

An exhaustive investigation conducted by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity found that the two competing firms together have received or are promised more than $2.2 billion from American taxpayers over the past 15 years.

"Retail is not economic development. People don�t suddenly have more money to spend on hip waders because a new Bass Pro or Cabela�s comes to town," says Greg Leroy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a non-partisan economic development watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. "All that happens is that money spent at local mom and pop retailers shifts to these big box retailers. When government gives these big box stores tax dollars, they are effectively picking who the winners and losers are going to be."

Numbers don�t always tell the whole story, counters Larry Whitely, a spokesman for Bass Pro Shops, a privately held company based in Springfield, Missouri. Whitley argues the stores should be viewed as an amenity being added to a community -- much like one might view a park or a library.

"These aren�t just stores � they are natural history museums," he says. "Every store is designed to reflect the unique natural environment of the area in which it is located." He adds that often a Bass Pro store is an anchor development that attracts additional retailers.

Then again, the amount of tax dollars that have been poured into these two companies would be enough to purchase every man, woman and child in the United States their own fishing pole.

Typically, these stores are financed through familiar economic development schemes like tax increment financing districts. Basically, a city borrows money by selling bonds on Wall Street and then pays off the debt with the increase in property or sales taxes generated in that TIF district.

The Franklin Center filed hundreds of state open records requests with cities, counties, economic development authorities and state governments seeking copies of development agreements both firms have entered into.

quote:
Cabela�s has received $551 million in local and state assistance during the past 15 years.
Bass Pro Shops received $1.3 billion in local and state assistance during the same period.
The federal government helped ensure liquidity for Cabela's' credit card division by providing $400 million in financing for the purchase of the company�s securitized debt.

Both firms have a history of targeting rural or smaller suburban communities and negotiating deals that involve extensive borrowing on the part of the municipality to build a store.

In fact, Bass Pro Shops often pays comparably little toward the construction of its own stores. While this sometimes is the case with Cabela's, its development schemes tend to involve elaborate agreements that include massive outlays for public spectacles in the midst of the retail setting.

Town Gets the Goat

For example, state and local taxpayers borrowed $60 million to build a Cabela's store and its supporting infrastructure in Buda, Texas. For that amount, every household in the 7,600-person community could have purchased a new 2012 Lexus CT Hybrid.

The Buda City Council even agreed to take the town's name off its water tower and replace it with the word "Cabela's." But government largess didn�t end there. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission provided Guadalupe bass, the official state fish, for the store's massive aquarium at no charge to the retailer.

In one of the more bizarre aspects of its agreement an economic development corporation established by Buda owns about 20 percent of the 185,000-square-foot store and one-third of the land on which it stands. Which means that a 30-foot artificial mountain, with taxidermied mountain goats and other wildlife, a 60,000-gallon, fresh-water aquarium and an exhibit of life-size African game animals all fall under the public ownership umbrella.

Reportedly, Cabela's will save $4 million in property taxes over the next 20 years because those non-revenue generating areas of the Buda store are publicly owned. This, of course, deprives the city of potential revenue and gives the store an advantage over competitors.

This type of public ownership of store amenities is a standard part of many of the development agreements Cabela�s enters into in communities ranging from Hamburg, Pennsylvania, to Mitchell, South Dakota. The retailer�s stuffed animal displays and aquariums are labeled as "museums" and its showrooms for used firearms are now called "gun libraries" as a sort of legal fig leaf to justify public ownership of the retailer's amenities.

"It�s almost like they are out to take advantage of the rubes,� says Michael Hicks, an economist at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. "Often these small town city councils aren�t the most sophisticated in analyzing an economic development proposal."

Convincing politicians that the store will be a tourist mecca is a critical part of Cabela's' and Bass Pro's spiel, says Stacy Mitchell, author of Big Box Swindle.

"When they go to these city councils they want to convince them that people will travel hundreds of miles just to shop at that store. They want them to believe it's not just a store, it's a tourist attraction," says Mitchell. "But just look at a map � these stores are everywhere. Why would you travel to one of these stores, if there is one in your hometown?" (Maps of Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops can be seen here and here).

Such was the argument former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford made first to the state legislature and then to the voters in 2006. Sanford engaged in a battle with his state's legislature over whether to provide incentives for Cabela's to build a store in North Charleston. Cabela's officials made claims of the store becoming a major tourist draw that defied credulity, he says.

In order to believe Cabela's claims, one has to accept that people would bypass similar Bass Pro stores in places like Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Lawrenceville, Georgia; and Concord, North Carolina, to travel to North Charleston to shop at the proposed store.

�It was completely unrealistic given the number of existing stores that are out there,� Sanford says.

In 2006, Sanford vetoed legislation passed by the South Carolina legislature that gave Cabela's a 50-percent break on sales and income taxes. But the legislature overrode Sanford�s veto. At that point, Sanford led a grassroots campaign against the Cabela's subsidies.

"We don�t think it makes sense for the any number of family-owned and smaller businesses that have been paying taxes in South Carolina for a long time to now be called on to subsidize a loss in their sales," Sanford wrote in a letter to dozens of outdoor sporting goods stores. "I would appreciate you making your voice heard if you think this proposal should not stand."

Sanford also sent letters with a similar message to the Cabela�s CEO. Eventually, the retailer backed away from building in South Carolina.

Under the Gun

So why are politicians so willing to subsidize Cabela's or Bass Pro Shops?

The appeal appears to be cultural and political as well as economic.

"This is a God-fearing, gun-loving part of the country," Sanford says. "People here feel passionately about the Second Amendment. The message I have is that we have an even more important tradition in this country called free enterprise. We need to fight to preserve it."

Art Rolnick, former chief economist for the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, compares small-town efforts to attract these retailers to that of major cities building stadiums and arenas for professional sports teams. Often it is done as a matter of civic pride or for bragging rights rather than as a matter of sound economic policy, he says.

In fact, Ball State economist Hicks studied the economic impact of seven Cabela's stores that opened between 1998 and 2003 and found that despite millions of dollars in economic development incentives given to the retailer, there had been no net gain in jobs detected in the communities one year after the stores opened.

"It�s not like folks suddenly have more money to spend on hip waders once a Cabela's opens up. What generally happens is that instead of buying those hip waders from an independent business, they go to big box store," says Leroy of Good Jobs First.

Both Cabela's and Bass Pro have become extraordinarily adept at getting taxpayers to pay not only for the bricks and mortar of their stores but some esoteric related attractions:

quote:
An 18-acre lake � with a waterfall � was paid for with part of the $70.6 million in taxpayer subsidies provided for a Bass pro development in Independence, Missouri.
An indoors cypress swamp will be created in Memphis as part of the $215 million taxpayers are contributing toward the renovation of the Pyramid Arena into a Bass Pro Shop. This includes money the city plans to spend to provide supporting infrastructure for the building.
A boardwalk, a town square and street improvements were part of the $150 million in tax dollars used for a development in Branson, Missouri, where a Bass Pro is the anchor tenant.
Stuffed animals have been purchased with millions of dollars in public funds to adorn numerous Cabela�s stores in communities ranging from Lehi, Utah, to Buda, Texas, to Hamburg, Pennsylvania.

These development deals are not without risks to the communities that enter into them. Bass Pro defaulted on its bonds for its development in Olathe, Kansas. In Independence, Missouri, the city even guaranteed the bonds and Bass Pro defaulted anyway, leaving the city to shell out $3.5 million to cover a payment last year on the project.

In both of those communities, the bond payments were tied to sales taxes generated by the Bass Pro Shop stores. When sales fell below the projected levels, there wasn�t enough money to pay off the bonds.

Paul Woodall is a Birmingham, Alabama, lawyer who specializes in economic development and who was hired by the city of Leeds, Alabama, to redraft a development agreement for a Bass Pro project. The city of Leeds, he says, was left vulnerable by the way the original development agreement was drafted because the bonds were backed by the full faith and credit of the city.

Bass Pro is more covetous of municipal subsidies than other retailers, Woodall says.

"These stores come into rural and suburban communities that don�t have a lot going for them and convince them that they can put them on the map. Many retailers who enter development agreements want to share sales tax revenues. But in the case of Bass Pro, they want it all," he says.

Cabela's Chief Financial Officer Ralph Castor says the construction of one of its "destination retail" stores can cause people to change their shopping habits by getting them to cross a city line or even a state border.

He notes that Cabela's' store in Wheeling, West Virginia, attracts customers from Pennsylvania and Ohio. But the city of Wheeling abuts the Ohio border and is only 11 miles from the Pennsylvania state line.

Castor concedes that it is a matter of debate whether municipal or state retail subsidies benefit the U.S. economy as a whole.

Cabela�s� own data indicates the customer base of its stores primarily is people living in the communities where the stores are located. The firm�s Reno store is its most successful at being a true destination retailer. Two-thirds of that store's customers come from a two-hour radius of Reno, Castor says.

"I think part of it is that California has really tough gun laws but Reno is nearby so people go there to shop," he says.

Cabela's has begun to rethink its strategy, which has reaped it hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives from small towns across the nation. Castor says Cabela�s has not ruled out accepting more local subsidies � if a good deal were presented to them by a community. But the company�s leadership has reconsidered the wisdom of accepting incentives.

"We have come to the conclusion that the places that are most likely to offer incentives are the places we are least likely to want to build," Castor says. "People want to come to your stores for excellent customer service and quality merchandise. The taxidermy displays may attract them the first couple times but they will keep coming back for the other."

# ? Jul 14, 2014 23:29

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 18, 2024 07:14

Tubesock: Apr 20, 2002

I thought this was going to be another thread about the F-35.

Somehow it's even more infuriating. I guess because I wouldn't expect small local governments to shoot themselves in the foot. But still pretty funny. This reminded me of the monorail episode of the Simpsons, except this situation is even more outrageous. At least if the monorail had worked, it could have possibly provided some benefit to the city.

It is hard to believe, and pretty sad, that real life is even worse than that hyperbolic story. Are the decision makers corrupt or incompetent? At the federal level I am certain it would be corruption. But at the local level it seems like more of a toss-up.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 02:36

Bitchkrieg: Mar 10, 2014

Unsurprisingly, in this kind of circumstance, I'd bet good money that -- until the arrival of Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's, etc. to a lower-middle class area -- the overriding political agenda was against limiting, in any sense, big business (because, you see, to do so would be Socialist!). These big stores are coming in, using economy of scale to undersell the local, smaller establishments, and are (essentially) the invariable result of a political and social culture that does very little to stymie corporate entitlement.

I find it difficult to feel particularly bad about Bill Winkler, and his ilk, because in all probability, they've actively voted to ensure that business is protected (almost certainly without genuine consideration for the personal consequences such a stance would have). It reminds me of listening to all the yahoos that remain completely, totally convinced that the dumping of tons of taxpayer dollars into the construction of a pro football stadium is a Very Good Thing for the community (despite exemptions from tax payment, use of public services, benefits to only a small segment of the population, etc).

# ? Jul 15, 2014 03:34

tsa: Feb 3, 2014

Out of curiosity are these two stores unusual examples or is this sort of thing typical for big box stores (or other large private businesses) and the article decided to focus on these two?

# ? Jul 15, 2014 03:50

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

It's a product of governments dominated by businessmen, who take the interests of the business class as equivalent to national or state interests.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 03:53

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

tsa posted:

Out of curiosity are these two stores unusual examples or is this sort of thing typical for big box stores (or other large private businesses) and the article decided to focus on these two?

Actually raising money to buy the store sounds unusual to me but I know of a city nearby where they essentially gave the land to Walmart for free so they could build a store.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 03:55

User Error: Aug 31, 2006

Man now I feel bad for buying a gun at Bass Pro.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 04:02

Stanos: Sep 22, 2009; The best 57 in hockey.

tsa posted:

Out of curiosity are these two stores unusual examples or is this sort of thing typical for big box stores (or other large private businesses) and the article decided to focus on these two?

I think it's more drawing on the fact that Bass Pro/Cabela's are more spectacles than say a Wal-Mart would be. Wal-Mart's pretty much the same wherever barring a few local items or whatever but those stores always have some weird rear end/fancy poo poo that's supposed to bring in more money and be an interesting attraction. The one closest to me has a bunch of fish in it and it's sort of neat to walk through once if you have 20 minutes to kill. Of course they're also a lot more expensive and less practical than a grocery/department store is so they need to lean more on locals and sucker them into thinking it'll be something that draws people in. Too bad you could drive an hour around St. Louis and find 3-4 of the drat things.

I suppose it'd have more allure if I gave a poo poo about hunting/fishing but you get one that might draw eyes and have business build around it but after that they spread and OOPS my eye grabbing store has a lot less appeal now that you can get to one closer or with less effort.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 04:10

Dmitri-9: Nov 30, 2004; There's something really sexy about Scrooge McDuck. I love Uncle Scrooge.

Because state and local governments are even easier and cheaper to strong arm than the federal government.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 08:22

shrike82: Jun 11, 2005

Man, Americans are retarded.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 08:51

Axetrain: Sep 14, 2007

Second on thinking this was going be another F-35 thread. These stores have figured out how to swindle small towns essentially. The councilmen of these places as the article points out probably aren't too knowledgeable about economics. They primarily exist in rural areas where they can fast talk the local government using a bunch of pro-business rhetoric, doesn't hurt that these places are often desperate for any way to stop the economic pain they are experiencing which makes them even easier marks.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 08:52

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; Out here, everything hurts.

Man, if you think this is bad, then you clearly haven't noticed Walmart.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 11:27

on the left: Nov 2, 2013; I Am A Gigantic Piece Of Shit

Literally poo from a diseased human butt

Axetrain posted:

Second on thinking this was going be another F-35 thread. These stores have figured out how to swindle small towns essentially. The councilmen of these places as the article points out probably aren't too knowledgeable about economics. They primarily exist in rural areas where they can fast talk the local government using a bunch of pro-business rhetoric, doesn't hurt that these places are often desperate for any way to stop the economic pain they are experiencing which makes them even easier marks.

I'm sure a large part of the argument is "We can build this thing in the town on the other side of the tracks if you want, sucking up cash and jobs from your own community, or you can incentivize us to pick your town to bring jobs and tourism money."

# ? Jul 15, 2014 12:50

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

A big reason for this is the consistent failure of American cities to capture an adequate level of revenue through property taxation, resulting in an elevation of the importance of transactional taxes like sales taxes, local motor fuel taxes, etc.

Strong Towns posted:

The primary job of a city government is to support the things which build wealth and create prosperity within their community. They enable the creation of prosperity by investing in services and infrastructure, which in turn makes their city more valuable and funds the investment.

For example, when a city builds a nice park, people value living close to the park - children have a place to play with the neighborhood kids - so the area becomes more desirable to families with children.

When we invest in cleaning up a downtown street - when we install some benches and trees to make it a more pleasant place, it attracts more people downtown and sales increase, that causes vacancy rates to go down, and property values to go up.

We build schools and offer fire protection because families value living in an area where their children can get an education and their home is less likely to burn down, than in an area without those services.

Cities build roads between two neighborhoods because the properties on either side of the road are worth more when they are connected to each other, than if they were not.

In order for a city to make a return on their investments, as well as to judge if an investment was productive, cities need a way to capture the increases in the value of their areas they invest in. Typically, cities capture the value of their communities through property taxes or land value taxes.

If investing in a new road or a light rail line is not expected to increase tax revenue enough to pay for that road or light rail line, it is a clear indication that the community will not value that investment, and this would generally be a bad investment.

If installing a new fountain downtown brings in more foot traffic, sales increase, followed by rent and property values, and tax revenue increases enough to pay for the fountain, this would generally be a good investment.

That is city management 101.

However, Arkansas is one of those crazy states where cities are mainly funded through sales tax. This is a dumb system.

The problem with relying on sales tax is that everything other than retail becomes a burden. Shops generate revenue for the city, while houses, businesses, and factories that do not make any direct sales do not generate any direct tax revenue - yet consume infrastructure and services.

In an optimal sales tax based city, where the city government does everything to eliminate all burdens and only contains productive development, we will have a city that is purely retail - where everyone lives out of town and comes in to shop.

. . .

Other than form, the problem with sales tax based cities is that building more retail does not automatically mean more tax revenue. There are only so many toothbrushes, televisions, and cars a person will want to buy in a year. A new store opening up will not always mean we will buy more toothbrushes, televisions, or cars.

If a city invests downtown and that attracts more shoppers downtown, tax revenue won't necessarily increase as people are not necessarily spending more - they are just spending their money downtown instead of in the suburbs.

Building a new restaurant does not mean I will eat out more, only that I will have more choices of where to eat when I decide to eat out.

There is also the threat of online retail where people can bypass paying sales tax completely. Wealthier residents that travel frequently may do most of their spending out of state, or even in a foreign country. The city has access to none of this.

However, the largest problem with sales tax based cities is that they have no way of capturing or measuring the performance of their investments. Building a neighborhood park or cleaning up a residential street will not lead to people spending more. We end up with a delusion that cities are like charities - to provide services and infrastructure for the people no matter the cost, because there's no way to capture or measure it.

Basing cities around sales tax is a dumb system that we need to change.

Of course, one reason that cities are so desperate for sales tax revenue is that they often intentionally prevent any style of development that generates a higher value/acre and lower service cost/acre than single family dwellings. Look at any city's zoning map and you'll notice a sea of (usually) yellow, which designates low-density residential. Low density residential and commercial development consistently fail to pay their own way, yet cities typically prevent anything else from being built in the vast majority of their territory.

Add to this the fact that we build our streets waaaay too wide (higher capital and maintenance costs) and you have a situation where property taxes are simply never going to cover the municipal budget. And so councils chase sales taxes.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 13:43

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

We probably should just have a thread talking about strong towns. The scope of the problems they discuss encompass this thread and all of the lovely ways our towns have been loving themselves for 50 years.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 14:26

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Axetrain posted:

These stores have figured out how to swindle small towns essentially. The councilmen of these places as the article points out probably aren't too knowledgeable about economics. They primarily exist in rural areas where they can fast talk the local government using a bunch of pro-business rhetoric, doesn't hurt that these places are often desperate for any way to stop the economic pain they are experiencing which makes them even easier marks.

Nah. The problem is that capital is so strong that it can coerce local (and state, and most of the time federal) governments with race to the bottom rhetoric. Either you give us these sweet tax breaks, or we go build over in Shelbyville where they've already promised X tax breaks.

e: It's just patronizing to assume these people are ignorant. While the standard of entry into local government is not as high as it should be, you do generally have to be a member of the business class in order to network and spend your way into office. That's another problem, many local officials worship at the temple of business and so a new shiny mall, new Growth, is an unabashed good even if it isn't all that great an investment.

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jul 15, 2014

# ? Jul 15, 2014 15:18

Femur: Jan 10, 2004; I REALLY NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP

Many local leaders are the big businessman. This is a corruption problem more than a dumbness one.

The story is very familiar in poor countries, I mean look at the Middle East, construction is very easy way to steal.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 19:00

BarkingSquirrel: Sep 12, 2008; by Smythe

Liquid Communism posted:

Man, if you think this is bad, then you clearly haven't noticed Walmart.

Its Tezzy. He only posted it because ZOMG GUUUUNS! :supaburn:

Otherwise he couldn't care less. This is a thing that is done for literally every big box store ever.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 20:14

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Stanos posted:

I think it's more drawing on the fact that Bass Pro/Cabela's are more spectacles than say a Wal-Mart would be. Wal-Mart's pretty much the same wherever barring a few local items or whatever but those stores always have some weird rear end/fancy poo poo that's supposed to bring in more money and be an interesting attraction. The one closest to me has a bunch of fish in it and it's sort of neat to walk through once if you have 20 minutes to kill. Of course they're also a lot more expensive and less practical than a grocery/department store is so they need to lean more on locals and sucker them into thinking it'll be something that draws people in. Too bad you could drive an hour around St. Louis and find 3-4 of the drat things.

I suppose it'd have more allure if I gave a poo poo about hunting/fishing but you get one that might draw eyes and have business build around it but after that they spread and OOPS my eye grabbing store has a lot less appeal now that you can get to one closer or with less effort.

Bass Pro Shop legitimately is a tourist attraction...for the first municipality that builds one in a region, and until they are everywhere, yeah. When I was in high school a Bass Pro opened up literally 100 miles away from my hometown and people started going there with the air that they were going to an amusement park or something. It is definitely a redneck/fisher/hunter mecca and the Bass Pro fishing tournaments are operated from some of those locations as well, so that draws in the serious crowd.

Once they're a dime a dozen then all of that goes away and all of those promises vaporize, but Bass Pro treaded carefully at first to build up a reputation as more than a big box store so as to sucker in as many places as they could once they started a big expansion push.

# ? Jul 15, 2014 20:44

Axetrain: Sep 14, 2007

BarkingSquirrel posted:

Its Tezzy. He only posted it because ZOMG GUUUUNS! Otherwise he couldn't care less. This is a thing that is done for literally every big box store ever.

Sure, big retailers get tax breaks, but when I walk into a Wal-Mart that gets tax breaks I am not greeted by taxpayer-funded waterfalls and $50,000 dioramas and "food libraries"

# ? Jul 15, 2014 21:23

BarkingSquirrel: Sep 12, 2008; by Smythe

Right because tax breaks or land given is how promotional displays are paid for :jerkbag:

# ? Jul 15, 2014 23:27

Tezzor: Jul 29, 2013; Can't post for 3 years!

BarkingSquirrel posted:

Right because tax breaks or land given is how promotional displays are paid for

Apparently, it is!

# ? Jul 16, 2014 02:03

Stanos: Sep 22, 2009; The best 57 in hockey.

Most big box places get sweetheart deals, the difference here is the largess involved and what amounts to highway robbery in taxes lost due to the con that it's a tourist attraction. Which it is, until Cabela's moves in or another shiny Bass Pro is opened up nearby that siphons off the attraction money. Then you have a bunch of mom and pop stores that lose, big box places cannibalizing each other and a bunch of tax revenue lost so Jim Bob and Bubba can go stare at the fish in the store while buying more hunting equipment.

Walmart/Target/whatever grocery chains get those benefits but at least people need to eat, buy toiletries or whatever doohickeys that they can't wait for delivery on. The biggest losers are whoever blinks first on these stores. One comes in and does well then they get hungry and spread, which defeats the whole tourist attraction thing they have going.

I'm actually kind of surprised there isn't more gimmick stores like them for stuff that isn't outdoors/hunting stuff.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 02:06

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

BarkingSquirrel posted:

Its Tezzy. He only posted it because ZOMG GUUUUNS! Otherwise he couldn't care less.

Should we assume the only reason you're posting here is because you're a gun fanatic?

quote:

This is a thing that is done for literally every big box store ever.

Source?

# ? Jul 16, 2014 03:02

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

I'm an urban planner for a midwestern college town, and we've "incentivized" a fair number of projects in the past several years. At least we have the sense to never offer money up front. Instead we do performance-based tax rebates (e.g. they can withhold a certain amount of taxes for every full-time job, or they don't have to pay sales taxes for a certain number of years, etc.). Of course, this is just a slightly less smelly version of the same poo poo sandwich.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 04:13

BarkingSquirrel: Sep 12, 2008; by Smythe

Helsing posted:

Should we assume the only reason you're posting here is because you're a gun fanatic?

Yes I'm a filthy gunhaver but I assure you I'm here solely because I love Tezzy and the hilarity his lies and question dodging leads to.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 05:54

Frostwerks: Sep 24, 2007; by Lowtax

Stanos posted:

I'm actually kind of surprised there isn't more gimmick stores like them for stuff that isn't outdoors/hunting stuff.

Maybe Fry's Electronics? I'd never travel 100 miles out of my way to visit one but if I found myself in the same city as one it's about the only retail store that I would seriously entertain visiting.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 05:54

Space Gopher: Jul 31, 2006; BLITHERING IDIOT AND HARDCORE DURIAN APOLOGIST. LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS SHIT DON'T STINK EVEN THOUGH WE ALL KNOW IT DOES BECAUSE I'M SUPER CULTURED.

Outdoor retailers do get special treatment beyond what Wal-Mart or other retailers get, and the reason is pretty simple: they're more than just stores, they're cultural markers. When Cabela's or Bass Pro comes to town with a development plan, they're not selling local leaders on a retail store. They're selling a monument to Real America, with Realtree camo jackets as far as the eye can see and Grandpa's old hunting truck parked outside. Nobody but the Waltons feels that strongly about Wal-Mart. And, especially in the semi-rural areas they choose, the people running the cities and counties aren't development experts - they're just the biggest good ol' boys around. Of course they're going to buy into it, and shovel money at the dream of having their very own outdoor superstore. The promises of economic development are just a bonus they can use to convince themselves that what they want for themselves is a good idea for the community, too.

The closest comparison is probably the mall developers who sold the same small towns on the idea of building shopping malls in economically depressed blue-collar towns - why, it's sure to turn your fine city into an upper middle class shopping destination! And your 76-trombone band can march straight down the main promenade!

# ? Jul 16, 2014 06:55

Beowulfs_Ghost: Nov 6, 2009

Can't speak for really rural America, but they are building a Cabela's near me in Tualatin Oregon.

http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Cabelas-brings-jobs-outdoor-goods-to-Tualatin-262804211.html

The funniest part of this new development project is that they had to tear down a local strip joint with its own storied past to build it. Jiggles was famous locally for having it's liquor license revoked, so they decide to take advantage having no real requirement to be 21 an older and made the age requirement 18 years.

Tualatin definitely isn't banking on this Cabela's being any sort of serious outdoorman Mecca. They've been taking advantage of being right on I-5 and next to Portland and building out for every kind of store imaginable. Just up the road is a Dick's Sporting Goods and an REI, and all that covers everything from fishing, to guns, to yoga pants, and on up to high end camping and sports equipment. Not to mention that across the street is a Fred Meyers, which sells plenty of Coleman and other budget outdoors supplies, along with being a grocery store that sells hotdogs and bags of ice.

So to those that say that these sort of projects will lead to these big brand stores cannibalizing each other, it is already in happening in the suburbs of Portland.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 07:31

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

The Strong Towns article linked above rings a bell when thinking about the Cabela's in Buda, Texas. I've shopped there a few times when I lived closer, and it really is massive, with the town water tower next to it decked out in the Cabela's logo. It's where you go to buy cheap ammo if you live anywhere between New Braunfels and the Colorado River. There's a prominent taxidermied animal exhibit, an aquarium with some (big rear end) fish, an antique used-gun exhibit dressed up like a museum. It's a camo-wearing, American-flag-waving symbol of rural America. (Also the Cabela's parking lot is one of the few places I've been openly called a "human being" by a complete stranger. So there you go.)

Partially in the store's defense, one of the problems for Buda is that there wasn't much of a local economy before the store came. It was a poor, rural town that started being settled by Austin commuters in significant numbers in the early 2000s as the economy was doing well. The city brought in Cabela's, which was meant to anchor a big development project ... then the recession hit.

I haven't been by lately, but for years after 2008 you had Cabela's, Walmart and HEB (Texas grocery chain) anchoring one side of the freeway, and a new hospital on the other. And you had big, empty signs already completed for all the other big box stores that were supposed to come but never did. This study also shows that sales tax revenue boomed in the first two years of Cabela's being in the city, but then took a major hit during the recession, because Cabela's is in precisely the kind of business that suffers the most during a recession: specialized grown-up toys and recreational luxury goods.

But Cabela's also brought in Walmart and HEB. Buda didn't (I believe) even had a grocery store until then -- people had to go to Austin or San Marcos. The other thing is that Cabela's isn't guaranteed money from the city unless the company meets a sales tax quota, which they haven't. Cabela's has to pay up the difference. I have to say the original article isn't convincing me that this was a bad idea. But I think the promises were also overstated and the city took a big risk. A better way of putting it would say it wasn't the best decision they could have made, as it put all their eggs in a specialized hunting equipment basket, but it wasn't necessarily a bad one.

BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Jul 16, 2014

# ? Jul 16, 2014 07:55

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

computer parts posted:

Actually raising money to buy the store sounds unusual to me but I know of a city nearby where they essentially gave the land to Walmart for free so they could build a store.

My understanding of it is that big businesses that want to expand into an area (there, of course, being no area they do NOT want to expand into) they'll contact local governments in the area to see who will give them the best deal. The local governments, of course, will fall over each other trying to give the most poo poo to the big store. If memory serves when Walmart moved into the area I'm from originally the jurisdiction that "won" that battle not only handed them free land but made them exempt from all local taxes for like seven years. Guess what that did to a great many local stores.

There has been similar crap going on in malls and what have you for a very long time as well. Malls would often sign deals where a big, recognizable store with strong branding would agree to move in only if the mall would give them a cut on the rent because, hey, people will go to shop there because they recognize it. Everybody wins! Then they would proceed to actively annihilate the local competition.

Yup, totally a free market where all competition is perfectly fair and companies rise and fall based solely on how good they are at what they do and most certainly not because massive behemoths squash everything else around them.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 09:21

tsa: Feb 3, 2014

BarkingSquirrel posted:

Its Tezzy. He only posted it because ZOMG GUUUUNS! Otherwise he couldn't care less. This is a thing that is done for literally every big box store ever.

Yup. There's several acres of empty lot down the street from me that the city paid to clear an old shopping mall off of, buying out all the stores still in it to make room for a Walmart... which decided not to go in at the last minute because the city wouldn't agree to a 10-year property tax amnesty in exchange for building there.

This poo poo happens all the time.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 20:49

Leonard Ghostal: Apr 26, 2006

Government subsidies for the rich, free markets for the little people

# ? Jul 21, 2014 00:32

Wistful of Dollars: Aug 25, 2009

It all reeks of graft and kickbacks. :911:

# ? Jul 21, 2014 01:51

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

El Scotch posted:

It all reeks of graft and kickbacks.

I'd like to know how many city council members got building contracts or management jobs with these companies.

# ? Jul 21, 2014 04:02

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

VideoTapir posted:

I'd like to know how many city council members got building contracts or management jobs with these companies.

I'd guess it's far fewer than you seem to think. When I discuss this with other people in my field, we all tend to agree that these council votes generally arise out of a poor understanding of economic development rather than corruption or kickbacks.

# ? Jul 21, 2014 04:06

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

Cabela's is weird, I grew up going to REI and never went to a Cabela's until I was in my 20's. It's like REI for reactionaries. Good deals on ammo sometimes though.

I'm sure REI gets sweet tax deals as well, did you know they sell pocketknives and axes there?? Merchants of death.

# ? Jul 21, 2014 04:14

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 18, 2024 07:14

tsa: Feb 3, 2014

pig slut lisa posted:

I'd guess it's far fewer than you seem to think. When I discuss this with other people in my field, we all tend to agree that these council votes generally arise out of a poor understanding of economic development rather than corruption or kickbacks.

Yep, I'd guess very few to none, these small games don't work like weapons contracts or whatever, walmarts not going to give joe america in nowheresville a cushy job because he voted for them. Mayyybe a contract, but usually they have their own development companies for that.

To add on to your other part the whole "oh but they'll just move to the next town over if we don't accept their proposal" is part of the poor understanding because a lot of the time (not always of course) it's a complete bluff on the part of the company. In many cases the spot they chose is the only spot that makes economic sense. The town they pick is usually the biggest in the area, functioning as essentially a mini-city to the surrounding rural farming communities and most often it is near an intersection of two major state roads or highways, ensuring tons of traffic. Sometimes the best sweetheart tax break in the world isn't worth losing those things.

# ? Jul 21, 2014 04:40

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why are our taxes subsidizing extravagant corporate weapons retailers?

«‹›2 »

quote:

quote:

quote:

tsa posted:

tsa posted:

Axetrain posted:

Strong Towns posted:

Axetrain posted:

Liquid Communism posted:

Stanos posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

BarkingSquirrel posted:

BarkingSquirrel posted:

BarkingSquirrel posted:

quote:

Helsing posted:

Stanos posted:

computer parts posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

BarkingSquirrel posted:

El Scotch posted:

VideoTapir posted:

pig slut lisa posted: