A few weeks ago the Source reported on the status of Bend’s last independent video store, Westside Video. I was reminded of the importance of such small businesses when my daughter and I recently rode our bikes to Westside Video to rent a movie. Locally owned businesses such as Devores Good Foods, Ranch Records, The Book Barn, Westside Video and others add diversity, independence and flavor to a commercial market that could soon be made up of nothing but sterile, national chains such as Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble and other big box stores.
The small stores provide people with an opportunity to connect with others in our community as we walk or ride bikes to such places. Chain stores are often located in traffic-congested areas that are too far or unsafe to travel to by foot or bike with family and friends. As for my money, more of my money spent at a locally owned business stays in Bend to be reused again and again in the form of tax revenue or purchases at other businesses.
With declining movie rentals in recent years, Westside Video may have to close its doors, and with it another small piece of what makes Bend unique will be gone. So I encourage others to join me in canceling our Blockbuster or Netflix memberships, take a walk or bike ride and spend our money and time supporting the local businesses that have helped to make Bend a unique place to live.
These small, one-of-a-kind businesses are part of the charm of our town and a reason for why we moved here. In recent years we’ve already lost other local neighborhood video stores, record stores and hardware stores. Let’s wake up and do what’s right rather than what’s convenient and make the right choice before Bend has nothing but chain stores. Years from now our kids will thank us for it.
This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2008.
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“Let’s wake up and do what’s right rather than that’s convenient and make the right choice before Bend has nothing but chain stores.”
I’m not sure how taking this smug elitists advice is creating a ‘right.’ Seems like that is a subjective issue much like the old saw, “one man’s sweat hog is another mans sweetheart.”
To those with the lifestyle of having lots of dollars in their jeans, it probably sounds ‘righter’ than it does to the moola challenged. The near impoverished can’t afford things like ‘diversity, independence and flavor.’ Those words are the affectations of someone who can purchase whatever they want, wherever they want. Only excess money brings this true freedom of choice. The rest of us do what we have to do, not what we’d necessarily like to do.
For many of us, big box stores provide a much needed better price, with the wider choice and deeper availability an added bonus.
Presumably, many of us ‘less fortunate’ have created these big box success stories, like Wal-Mart. Shopping the big box for most of our consumer needs frees up about $300 to $350 a month for things like renting a movie. When one lives close to the bone, each little morsel that goes into the meager pot helps.
So, I appreciate where you smug self-centered elitist assholes are coming from, but many of us simply can’t afford your precious charm and flavor and out of sheer
necessity, consider the issue beyond trivial.
Boy Larry, you may have just ensured a trip to the woodhshed for yourself. 100% correct though you are, you have defiled one of the basic principles of left wing religion in Bend by saying Wal-Mart serves a vital purpose in the Central Oregon economy.
I’ve been trying to cut through the hysterical yammering of the anti Wal-Mart crowd for years and not once have any of them made the first bit of sense. Too wrapped upped in the notion that their idealism and more highly evolved social conscience makes them the ultimate authority on where everybody should be allowed to shop.
Being a “less fortunate”, as stated previously by Larry Delbert, I concede that the “box stores” are more convenient and cost effective. Living paycheck to paycheck, barely covering the basic cost of living expenses while supporting three children, this is a large factor in budgeting. However, I fully agree with Greg Bueker in that these local, non-chain stores are under appreciated and under noticed blessings that we need to support as a community. Aside from the safety issues, they represent something that we, as Americans have lost in recent years. I am only thirty years old and look back to the fifties and sixties with awe and admiration. Within one generation the American people seem to have lost something so very vital to our existance as people. A healthy dose of pride. There are no longer communities, but simple “clicks” that we blindly usher into because it is cheaper and more convenient. Many wonder where commitment, integrity and ethics have gone. It’s simple. They, along with several other virtues have gone the way of the “box stores” cold, calculating, impersonal, cookie cutter, cost-slashing policies. While saving money is often a necessity, there is also something to be said about diversity, variety, class and heritage. Someone once told me that the most important thing in this world is Legacy. Money, houses, cars and toys are nice, but what would rather leave for your children and their childred? As for me I choose to pass onto my children a Legacy of worth, value, compassion and individuality. Some things are simply not worth the sacrifice. Find a balance if necessary, but for the sake of our beautiful city support your local shops and small businesses!
Every person living in the world does not have the same income or buying power. Let’s not argue, but feel pretty good about having choices.
And, we do have that here and many people need both choises.
A positive attitude feels better and healthier than a negative one, so, move on and contemplate other issues of more importance – and that, too, is your choise, thankfully.
Larry and Jon seem a bit lazy to me…I don’t make much money(very little in fact) but I have made lifestyle changes that allow me to make decisions in where my money goes. I bet if you rode a bike and stopped driving everywhere that would also free up $300 a month for you to rent a movie every now and then from the local video store…Get rid of cable t.v. and you might be able to afford to buy fresh fruits and vegetables from the farmer’s market(plus it’ll get your kids off the couch). I honestly don’t care what you do or where you shop, but saying that you can’t afford to buy local is a cop-out. Unfortunately there are millions of people like you in America that are driving local businesses into the ground and increasing the gap between the very rich and the “less fortunate” like us.
I go to a store to buy something I either need or want. My social schedule and my feelings of self worth are acquired by other means than where I shop.
Towns are collections of stores where you buy things and people live there to be close to the things they want to buy. Other than that, they are useless.
I could give a shit who owns what store or where they are from. The object of any store, local or chain, is to lighten your wallet. My job is to keep as much in my wallet as I can when purchasing what I want. It gives me no satisfaction to leave more money on the table so that some local business owner can spend more time skiing on my wasted buck.
What the hell difference does it make whether Wal-Mart pays someone $10 an hour to lighten my wallet, or some local yokel pays someone $10 an hour to do the same, only worse? Where is the ‘charm?’ in that? “Gee, Monica, wasn’t that a charming little store? It only cost us $32.48 more for a widget polishing tool and we always will have this perfect memory enshrined in that wonderful video you took of us paying too much. What a great town we live in!”
If this issue is important to you, my suggestion would be to go to some local store and buy yourself a life, because you sure as hell don’t have one now.
I’m pleased to say that I’ve never rented from a Blockbuster or subscribed to NetFlix…. but I’m worried that very soon these will be the only options remaining in Bend. I’ve lived in and visited small cities similar to Bend, where independant movie stores have flourished! Bend should be able to support Westside Video, and more! I really hope they don’t close.
Wayne nailed it on the head…”I could give a shit who owns what store or where they are from”…Guys like this only care about themselves and this is why America is the way it is today..me, me, me, me….Anybody who isn’t me can go to hell…I don’t care that somebody has to suffer so that I can get my cheap shirt…it is all about me…I don’t care that giant corporations are making it so that we have no choice where to buy….as long as I can continue to consume and waste, than do it all over again…buy myself a life? I’m sure your life consists of: get up, leave your cookie cutter house, hop in your SUV, go to your cubicle for 8 hours, come home and sit in front of the t.v. for 5 hours, go to sleep….repeat….some life, where can I buy? Maybe Wal-mart has it on sale.
Wow. There are some angry people here. I don’t really care one way or the other, but to assume that someone “gets up, leaves his cookie cutter..etc” has no life simply because they don’t buy into Bend’s “we’re special” mentality is a little harsh, don’t ya think?
I don’t personally shop at WalMart, but then again, I don’t make minimum wage and have three kids at home either. Who knows what I would do if that were the case.
And for the people with their quaint little boutiques and independent shops, how many of them want to hire the stereotypical WalMart employee to work in their store? Very few. Those stores have a “look” that must be maintained and while the owners may talk a good story about the evils of WalMart, I don’t see them hiring those people.
Anyway, let’s just try to keep it civil.