DAMARISCOTTA, Maine -- Wal-Mart's p...

DAMARISCOTTA, Maine -- Wal-Mart's plan to build a 186,000-square- paw supercenter within two miles of Damariscotta's historic red- brick downtown was thwarted through opponents' weapon of choice: citizen- approved zoning changes.

The grass stems campaign that started here spread like wildfire along Maine's midcoast as three neighboring towns adopted similar measures. if it were not that Wal-Mart foes failed in Waldoboro and Wiscasset.

Despite its succes a assemblage called Our Town that was created to fight Wal-Mart across the region isn't letting down its guard.

"Big-box stores have a regional impact. It makes no brains to try to fight it in just single town," said Eleanor Kinney, a spokeswoman for Our Town.

Maine provides an example of for what reason Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is hitting spe powers in its strategy to "fill the gaps" in places where it doesn't already have stores. It plans to add more than 300 stores this year alone in the United States.

At day's period however, sporadic opposition in Maine and other parts of the region won't prevent the giant discounter from achieving its growing goals, analysts say.

BUILDING OPPOSITION

It all started in Damariscotta, 50 miles from Portland, where activists put a 35,000-square-foot limit on recent retail development to discourage "big box" stores and sprawl.

Voter in neighboring Newcastle easily approved a similar size cap. To the southern Edgecomb followed suit and to the north, Nobleboro imposed a moratorium forward large commercial buildings.

Wal-Mart applauded the consequence of a June referendum in which Waldoboro lay asideed a 45,000-square-foot cap, but said it has no plans either there or in Wiscasset, where a propos moratorium forward stores bigger than 40,000 square feet went down to defeat.

Wal-Mart stores range from an average of 101000 square feet for a discount store to 185000 square feet for a supercenter

"Wal-Mart views the latter votes as a positive sign that residents, consumer and citizens alike do in fact want economic evolution and greater choices with reverence to where they shop," company spokesman Christopher Buchanan said.

In Damariscotta, size cap proponent framed their campaign as an effort to conserve the character of the town of 2000 which boasts an attractive downtown lined with workshops restaurants, art galleries and boutiques.

After their victory in March, organizers made it plain that keeping the discounter not at home of Damariscotta was not enough.

"Big-box disclosure is a bad economic deal for Maine," Kinney said. "Dollars leave the state, local businesses are displaced, and the whole unique character of Maine is at risk."

Our Town form into groupss with similar agendas sprung up in other midcoast towns along U 1 the state's main coastal way but the referendum campaign was particularly spirited in Waldoboro, the largest town in Lincoln shire Waldoboro, with a sizable blue- collar constituency, had seen its largest employer a Sylvania light protuberance filament plant, shut down last year as piece of works were outsourced to the Czech Republic.

Darrell Goldrup who l the campaign against the size cap, said he remains indifferent about Wal-Mart still believes it made no perception to eliminate an economic progression in a continuously ascending gradation option that could prove beneficial.

"What collection my passion is that we lacked a vision, lacked a plan, lacked goals for our town," he said.

Similar battles are taking place around the land where Wal- Mart opponents are going to level greater extremes than in Maine.

In California, for example, the San Francisco suburb of Hercules seized land at eminent domain to keep Wal-Mart disclosed

Motivations for resistance to the discounter are varied, ranging from worries about the impact onward mom and pop stores to issues involving health care and union representation, said Bernie Sosnick, a retail analyst with modern York-based Oppenheimer & Co.

"Opponent think Wal-Mart is the source of all evil, that it underpays its workers, that it abuses workers," said Sosnick, who dismisses similar claims as illogical.

HOLDING DOWN THE SIZE

Longtime Wal-Mart antagonist and anti-sprawl activist Al Norman of Greenfield, Mass., said use of dimensional limits has become a standard zoning step for towns concerned about out-of-scale unfolding

"You didn't have to do this years ago. unless you didn't have developers coming to small communities proposing stores that are three or four times the size of a football field," said Norman, who has worked with Our Town. "But this is the of the present day reality. You have to fix limits."

The talk of size caps advances at a time when Wal-Mart is in the midst of a plan to add more than 1500 stores in the years ahead to the 3200 it already operates in the United States.

The retailer render free of accessed 341 stores last year and is forward target to add between 335 and 370 this year. recently made known construction focuses on supercenters, which combine a well stocked [i]or[/i] provided grocery section with the general merchandise set in Wal-Mart's discount stores.

Maine was among the last of the states to attract Wal-Mart, however the chain now has 22 stores, 12 of them supercenter The company also has three Sam's form a clubs and a new regional distribution center in Lewiston.