Sunday Focus: "Incentives"

  

   Hunting and Fishing and other outdoor activities are a billion dollar business...yet cities like Huntsville end up paying retail stores who demand incentives to build a store to sell their products.       
     From the news release announcing that store opening:

As we continue to expand our retail footprint in the Southeast, Cabela's knew we needed a store in Alabama," said Tommy Millner, Cabela's Chief Executive Officer. "With such a remarkable outdoor heritage and lifestyle, Alabama certainly is a Cabela's kind of place."

Yet AL.COM reports: 

(The Huntsville Director of Urban Development) said the Nebraska-based competitor of Bass Pro Shops was "lukewarm" to Huntsville's initial advances.

     Then came the expected incentives---The city agreed to spend some $3-Million to buy property, expand a lake, and relocate utilities on the site for the company's new outdoor store.
     Voila: a deal is struck and there's another place for Alabamians to spend their money.
     The most recent effort to count how many Americans take part in "outdoor activities" is last year's report by a lobbying group for the industry.

(A 2006 Report: $730-Billion contribution to the economy nationally...though the number the report uses are from 2001....13 years old, and the study was organized by hunting and fishing interests, and paid for by U.S. taxpayers.)

     I do wonder what locally owned stores that sell similar goods think about the $3-Million expenditure.
     Incentives make sense for huge manufacturing plants like Mercedes or Hyundai (and even Remington!) that make goods that are sold worldwide. But doesn't paying incentives to retailers just takes money from existing profit and spread it even thinner?

[Sunday Focus is a regular feature of www.TimLennox.com]