The requests of a vast majority of speakers at Tuesday’s Atascadero City Council meeting did not go unheard as the council voted 4-1 to place a big box initiative on the November ballot.

Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Beraud was in dissent, stating Atascadero is the only sizable city in the county where a big box ordinance is not already in place.

“I think there’s many people out there who do want to keep what’s unique in our community so for me it comes down to can we be the leaders that we were elected to be,” she said. “I mean of course we could always punt this and be done with it... Is this fair that we pass this on to the people of the community? [With an election] the facts get distorted, the attacks get personal and hurtful and the media spins this issue in all kinds of directions.”

The Shield Initiative was brought to the council due to the efforts of the locally-based Oppose Wal-Mart group and aims to amend the city’s zoning ordinances to place a 150,000-square-foot cap on the size of big box stores. The initiative is also designed to prohibit superstores by dictating that retail locations with more than 90,000 square feet of gross sales floor space would not be able to devote more than five percent of that space to the sale of non-taxable goods, such as groceries.

The initiative was brought to the council’s attention following the successful collection of 1,511 signatures in favor of the ordinance, a figure that represents 10 percent of Atascadero’s registered voters.

Tuesday’s meeting saw a turnout of about 300 people and was adjourned at around midnight after the council’s vote. Of those who directly addressed their preference for the council’s three options — adopt the first reading of the ordinance, call for an election, or order staff to compile a report on the impacts of the ordinance — about 39 citizens spoke in favor of placing the initiative on the ballot while approximately 12 spoke in favor of the ordinance’s outright approval. City Clerk Marcia Torgerson said placing the ordinance on the ballot will cost the city about $2,000.

While the Shield Initiative does not directly address Wal-Mart’s proposal to build a supercenter on the land it owns at the intersection of Del Rio Road and El Camino Real, the project is the only proposal that would be affected by a big box ordinance at this time. The Wal-Mart proposal is also linked to The Rottman Group’s application to develop an adjacent shopping center known as The Annex; however, while this project would not be directly affected by such an ordinance, Keith Mathias, The Rottman Group’s senior vice president, said the passage of the Shield Initiative would “kill” The Annex because it would lose its anchor.

Wal-Mart’s current application is under 150,000 square feet — a size that came in only after the council voted not to send an application for a larger project forward in the approval process because it came in over the 150,000-square-foot limitation for that corner dictated by the general plan — however, the proposal does plan to devote more than five percent of gross sale floor space to non-taxable goods. With a 4-1 vote in Beraud’s dissent on March 12, the council gave the go-ahead for staff to begin processing the applications from Wal-Mart and the Rottman Group.

Prior to Tuesday’s public comment period, Oppose Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Comar asked the council to approve the initiative rather than send it to a vote.

“The initiative is not about shopping rights and choice as Wal-Mart consumerism propaganda asserts,” he said while highlighting previous statements that have indicated Wal-Mart will expand its Paso Robles location into a supercenter. “Citizens have easy access to cheap Chinese imports within a short drive.”

Comar went on to state that Oppose Wal-Mart was not against the initiative going to a ballot, but was hesitant to do so in the climate of corporate democracy.

“We’re up against the largest corporation in the world which has unlimited resources and expertise in fighting initiatives of the people,” he said. “The only special interest in this room tonight is Wal-Mart and the Rottman Group and they have all the money in the world to sell themselves to us.”

In contrast, Wal-Mart spokesman Aaron Rios said the council should include the other 90 percent of Atascadero residents in the choice and let the voters decide whether or not the initiative passes.

“The initiative before you is the worst anti-choice, anti-consumer, anti-competition legislation available to special interest groups such as Oppose Wal-Mart,” he said. “Tonight I stand before you as an advocate for consumers and representing a property owner with genuine interests in possible development in the city.”

In January Rios said the Paso Robles Wal-Mart would become a supercenter, but on Tuesday he indicated the company is re-evaluating conceptual thoughts about the store’s expansion and said the proposal is not as much of a foregone conclusion as it once was. Rios also indicated that Wal-Mart’s interest in Atascadero does not mean it will build a store if it receives the necessary approval and said if the Shield Ordinance passes and the Atascadero proposal was then out of compliance, Wal-Mart would re-evaluate its intentions to build within the city. Traditional Wal-Mart stores, he said, are not longer within the company’s building portfolio.



Big Box Ordinances

The current initiative does not represent the first time the city of Atascadero has looked into a big box ordinance. In December 2006 the council directed staff to look into establishing such an ordinance and achieved council consensus, with Councilmen Tom O’Malley and Jerry Clay in opposition, to do so on Feb. 27, 2007. The ordinance the council established at that time stated any commercial development that was more than 90,000 square feet would trigger a requirement that non-taxable sales could not represent more than eight percent of a given business’ floor space. The February 2007 vote also established that the maximum size of any retail store would be set at 150,000 square feet. Membership stores, as is the case with the Shield Initiative, would have been exempt from the cap on the percentage of non-taxable sales.

At the council’s next meeting on March 13, 2007, then-Mayor George Luna asked for a reconsideration of the big box ordinance due to the cost to the community in time, money and divisive debate.

The reconsideration passed by a 5-0 vote at that time as did a 5-0 vote not to draft a big box ordinance.

According to the staff report created for the big box ordinance item, an ordinance limiting similar development in Turlock was found to be legitimate by the California Court of Appeals. In addition, the Federal District Court determined the Turlock ordinance did not violate the Equal Protection Clause under the federal and state constitutions or the Commerce Clause in the federal constitution.

“Wal-Mart has been the most aggressive in filing legal actions claiming big box ordinances target their superstores specifically,” the staff report said. “Based on previous experience in other municipalities in California, when a city adopts an ordinance, it should do so anticipating a legal challenge from Wal-Mart.”

San Luis Obispo County and the cities of Paso Robles, SLO, Arroyo Grande and Santa Maria have big box ordinances in place, the staff report said. In each area the ordinance is different, but all place a limitation on the sale of non-taxable merchandise.