As a Route 66 aficionado, I don’t need encouragement to patronize mom-and-pop businesses. Visiting independent stores remains a vital part of the Mother Road experience. So a documentary that advocates supporting mom-and-pops is preaching to the choir.
However, I learned from the just-released DVD of “Independent America” (subtitled “The
Two Lane Search for Mom & Pop”) that my practice of shopping at local businesses not only helps them, but it also provides a much bigger boost to the local economy than shopping at national chains.
The documentary “Independent America” was created by the husband-and-wife journalist team of Hanson Hosein and Heather Hughes. They saw ripples of a revolt developing across the nation against “big box” national chains, and they drove cross-country to talk to Americans about it.
During their journey of 13,000 miles in 52 days in a cramped SUV, the filmmakers had to abide by two rules:
- No interstates. They must travel only on secondary highways and country roads.
- The could do business only with mom-and-pops. That meant no chains. That meant no McDonald’s, no Holiday Inns, no Wal-Marts.
During their trek, Hosein and Hughes managed an excusion down Historic Route 66 in Arizona. They spoke with John Pritchard, owner of the Hackberry General Store. They chatted with John Delgadillo between pranks at the Snow Cap Drive-in in Seligman. And they talked with Angel “Guardian Angel of Route 66” Delgadillo at his barbershop / souvenir store in Seligman.
Even during the beginnings of Route 66’s rebirth, foreign tourists urged Angel not to change his approach:
“In 1988, tourists say, ‘Angel, when you let a McDonald’s come in here (to Seligman), I don’t want to come in here anymore. I can see that in Germany.’
“We are losing our own identity by going too much with the big conglomerate businesses. America still needs America of yesterday.”
Angel’s daughter Myrna Delgadillo, who helps run the store, agreed:
“Someday there isn’t going to be this. It’s all going to be corporate business. No one’s going to know what mom-and-pop is like … no one is going to know what customer service is like. It’s going to be just one big, square box. There’s going to be no uniqueness to anything anymore, and that’s what we’re trying to preserve.”
It’s been rough for independent businesses. Forty percent of indie bookstores have closed in the past decade. Nearly 11,000 independent pharmacists have shut down. Entire downtown business districts have been decimated. There are plenty of national chains to blame, but the filmmakers concentrate on three — Starbucks, Borders and Wal-Mart.
The chains’ influence is pervasive. In Yelm, Wash., the city council prohibited the use of the words “big box” and “Wal-Mart” during the public comment portion of meetings. When cities show reluctance in allowing another big box, the chain finds a way to put the issue on a ballot initiative and then floods the local media with ads to sway voters.
In one particularly disturbing instance, Wal-Mart ran a full-page newspaper ad that compared Flagstaff, Ariz., government to Nazis. (Wal-Mart later apologized and fired the ad agency.)
But people are fighting back:
- Teenagers in Port Townsend, Wash., try to draft an anti-chain law after an independent video store is threatened by a nearby Hollywood Video.
- Unhappy residents in Durango, Colo., vandalize a downtown Starbucks.
- Independent stores in Austin, Texas, scare off a nearby chain.
- More towns consider zoning restrictions against big boxes.
- 24 states consider legislation against retailers that have a disproportionate number of employees enrolled in government-health programs.
The film makes a compelling case for mom-and-pop shopping by citing the “multiplier effect.” For each $100 spent in local businesses, it benefits the local economy an average of 3 1/2 times more than spending the $100 at chains. That’s because money spent in chains is funneled out of town to corporate headquarters. Money spent in local businesses spreads out among other local businesses.
And the Santa Fe Alliance espouses a “10 percent challenge.” It urges residents to spend at least 10 percent of their income at local shops so that more money cycles through the community. (The filmmakers said in a recent blog entry that their rate is close to 50 percent.)
In Powell, Wyo., the couple found a mom-and-pop success story in the Powell Merchantile Inc., aka The Merc. Powell sat too far from the interstate for national chains to be interested. So residents pooled their money at $500 a share and opened their own clothing retail store. The store has made money “since day one” and attracted national attention.
If the subject matter sounds a bit clinical, it’s not. “Independent America” is a crisply edited, fast-moving film over its 81 minutes. It also helps that Hosein and Hughes are engaging hosts. While searching for an independent motel in Brownfield, Texas, we react with the same shock and dismay as they drive down a deserted, boarded-up downtown.
What’s refreshing about “Independent America” is it’s not all finger-pointing. In the film, Jennifer Rockne of the American Independent Business Alliance says “people (must) realize the solution lies within themselves” to help local shops survive and dilute the influence of corporate behemoths.
Watching “Independent America” could have been a depressing experience. Instead, it inspires viewers to patronize mom-and-pops. It provides ideas and solutions. “Independent America” induces you to take action, not mope.
Highly recommended.
(“Independent America” is available for $19.95 from its Web site. As for my review copy, which the couple generously mailed to me free of charge, it’s going to be donated to my local library to help spread the word.)
This is unbelievably important. And actually really easy to do on Route 66 (with the exception of, perhaps, gas stations). Lucky for us, the chains are easily avoidable on Mother Road. Trade in your Wal-Marts and McDonalds for general stores and diners.
And when you get home, keep it up. We don’t need chain stores, they need us. And if they don’t get us, (and with a bit of a fight) they’ll eventually start going away.
Remember that field, that forest that used to be where the big box store stands? It can grow back if we want it to.
Y’know, I decided to boycott Wal-Mart over the Debbie Shank case a couple of years ago. I wasn’t sure how I was going to function without Wal-Mart, because at the time, between groceries and incidentals, I was spending an average of $150 a week there, and I did most of my shopping at 2 a.m., when nothing else was open. I was afraid I couldn’t afford the higher prices at other stores, and I was afraid I wouldn’t have time to go to umpteen different stores to get what I needed.
But a funny thing happened when I quit going to Wal-Mart. First, I realized that I’d been shopping at 2 a.m. because A.) I could, and B.) it was the only way to avoid long lines at Wal-Mart, where the registers are chronically understaffed. Second, I discovered that I saved a lot of money in a lot of different directions. Yes, Wal-Mart typically has lower prices. But those lower prices tempt me to buy things I don’t need, and they tempt me to buy more than I need, which is silly — and, when you’re talking about perishable items, quite wasteful. Wal-Mart also tempts me to buy things I already have. It’s easier to run to Wal-Mart and pick up a package of screw anchors than it is to go out to the garage and find the leftover screw anchors that have been rattling around the bottom of my toolbox since my last Wal-Mart hardware run. So I buy some more hardware to lose in the bottom of my toolbox. And while I’m there, I buy a half-dozen other things I don’t need, just because they’re on sale or I might use them someday.
Mindless consumerism at its worst — and big-box stores depend on it and encourage it and magnify it.
Last spring, I spent a month shopping almost exclusively at mom-and-pop stores. Aside from a couple of unavoidable cheats, I confined all my purchases to the little guys.
What I found was that my expenditures lessened, my stress level dropped, and I got my shopping done faster, with far less effort. I had a lot of fun in the process, too, because without the big-box stores, I had to explore some out-of-the-way shops in search of specific items I couldn’t find at my usual haunts.
I still shop at chain stores. They’re convenient, and sometimes there’s just no way around it. But to the greatest extent possible, I do business with the little guys. And you’d be surprised how easy it is — and how much money you end up saving when you’re buying what you need and not whatever you see on an endcap that’s been strategically placed in an “action alley” for the express purpose of luring you to buy something you probably don’t need or even really want.
Thanks so much for writing about this new film. I can’t wait to order it. I am huge believer in independent business in communities.
Hey, let’s not forget about the dwindling numbers of mon-pop record stores. You know, places you could go into where the people actually knew about music.
I know that in the last year, I’ve lost Full Cyrkle Records in nearby Crystal Lake, Il., and a great place for Beach Music (not Beach Boys or Jan and Dean, but the great stuff from the Carolinas and southeast) called the Record Rack in Goldsboro, NC.
One of my favorite things to do was to visit these places and talk music with both the owners as well as other like-minded folk.