In twenty years, we'll all be driving our "Rollback Riders" to Father Walton's reeducation camps to pick up little "Wally" from his daily Bargain Drills. And this future has taken a step toward becoming reality through councilwoman and Wal-Mart naysayer Christine Quinn's recent efforts to integrate the chain with the Hunts Point produce market, negotiating a deal that would require Wal-Mart to purchase a portion of its produce from the vendors there. Quinn tells Crain's, "Walmart, by its own admission, isn't interested in a single supermarket in New York; they're interested in growing into a much bigger part of the market." This is presumably because once the Wal-Virus is implanted in a community, it spreads with abandon. So why fight it?
"If one store becomes eight stores becomes whatever number, then you have the risk of having a significant portion of the city's food not going through Hunts Point," Quinn says. Despite being the world's larger food distribution center, Hunts Point and all the businesses who purchase goods from it are in trouble if Wal-Mart comes to town, claims the co-owner of the D'Arrigo Brothers produce wholesalers. The chain would "harm our customer base and at the same time won't buy any noteworthy volume of produce out of the market."
Quinn says she's not sure "if there's any way they can be Walmart and find a way to work with Hunts Point," given the store's practice of buying goods from producers at rock-bottom prices. But a deal certainly wouldn't hurt possible 2013 mayoral candidate the the business community, especially in conjunction with her FoodWorks program aimed at bringing fresh, cheap produce to neighborhoods that need it. Wal-Mart admits that it is discussing "ways to leverage the resources of the company" to make it's move to NYC a smooth one. Maybe they should just get Pedro Espada to keep cutting checks to Hunts Point to keep it in business?
