I went by the other day and it is still broken. (of course) I guess the walmarts in malta is doing a remodel. They are putting in hard wood floors, like pergo, and cleaning up the racks. I believe they do not have so many racks the congest the store, where ya can't even move. They are going to try 'upscale'. Trying to bring in different desirables.

My question is, it may 'look' upscale, but appearance alone just won't cut it. Upscale means quality, english speaking employees, polite employees, smart employees, feeling safe in the parking lot, a business that takes pride in being part of a community, no broken fences ...ya know what I mean here?

They are clearly trying to mimic Target and I don't see that happenin'.

Someone was telling me that they were in the glenville walmart and they said it was filled with undesirables. Bad language, loud, rude, some non-english speaking....but it was packed with hardly any place to park. So go figure!

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Someone was telling me that they were in the glenville walmart and they said it was filled with undesirables. Bad language, loud, rude, some non-english speaking....but it was packed with hardly any place to park. So go figure!

I think this is just the "new America"....I can go to Macy's or other so called "high end retailer".....folks are just sooooo, how shall I say it"sex in the city, soprano, seinfeld, narcistic American Idol, cynical etc".....baseness is baseness no matter where ya go.....

Senders, check out today's gazette, the business section, big story of Walmart employee theft at the Glenville store.

Hey admin, can you post that article?  (the way the schenectadyny board puts up gazette stories)

Personally I've seen better at Glenville, the employees and the customers, but admitedly we are there that often so I don't know if I'm missing anything.

But the Rotterdam store, sure there are undesirable customers given the bordering of the city.  But in many cases the employees leave a lot to be desired.  Certainly there are immigrants so accents might be part of their speaking, but how can any human resources person hire, and a department manager allow, an employee to continue to be employed when they are saying things like "I'll be right wit chew."  And the cashier to the customer ahead of us, "....I ain't never not going to....."  

http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

GLENVILLE
Bolder theft rings a growing challenge for retailers
BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter

   The customers brought items to Michelle Hernandez-Soto’s cash register in a Wal-Mart off Route 50 and she rang them up.
   When some of her friends dropped off food products and DVDs at her work station, she passed them through a bar code scanner so the prices would not register. Her friends would then either return the stolen items to Wal-Mart for cash or sell them on the streets of Schenectady.
   Eventually, a Wal-Mart loss-prevention specialist caught on to Hernandez-Soto’s ruse at the register, also known as a “skim scam.”
   In May 2006, Glenville police officers arrested the Schenectady woman and charged her with fourth-degree grand larceny for the theft of $1,256 worth of merchandise during a month-long period.
   “These skim scams are happening all over,” said Glenville Police Detective William Marchewka.
   The Glenville thefts came around the same time Wal-Mart was undergoing an unprecedented shift in corporate policy to address the ever-worsening trend of organized retail crime.
   In July, the union-backed Wake-UpWalmart.com distributed copies of a new Wal-Mart policy. It said thieves will be prosecuted only if they steal merchandise valued over $25. The policy change marked the demise of Wal-Mart’s zero-tolerance stance on shoplifting beloved by the Bentonville, Ark., company’s founder.
   Wal-Mart altered its attitude toward shoplifting upon realizing that it needed to focus more on fighting organized theft rings as opposed to petty shoplifters.
LOSSES PILE UP
   As organized retail crime becomes more prevalent and theft rings become bolder, other retailers nationwide are coming to similar revelations over shoplifting.
   In the Capital Region, concerns over the escalating theft problem last month prompted an Albany trade organization to host an organized retail crime conference.
   “The problem is becoming a little more recognizable as it becomes more prevalent,” said Ted Potrikus, vice president and director of government relations for the Retail Council of New York State, which hosted the conference in Albany.
   U.S. retailers last year sustained a record loss of $41.6 billion because of shrinkage, the National Retail Federation announced last week. Shrinkage is the loss of inventory resulting from theft, shoplifting, organized retail crime, administrative error and vendor fraud.
   Forty-seven percent of last year’s shrinkage losses stemmed from employee theft, similar to the kind Hernandez-Soto committed at the Glenville Wal-Mart.
   Days after Hernandez-Soto’s 2006 arrest, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of petty larceny. She was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution. However, police were not able to identify any of the cashier’s cohorts who participated in the skim scam.
   Wal-Mart is far from being alone in its fight against people with sticky fingers. A May NRF survey found that 71 percent of retailers have noticed increases in organized retail theft activity over the previous 12 months, compared with 48 percent in 2006. One in 10 retailers are spending more than $1 million annually to combat and prevent organized retail crime.
   “There’s only so much retailers can do. You don’t want to turn the store into Fort Knox,” said Potrikus.
   The organized retail criminals — also known as boosters — tend to steal items that are small and expen- sive. Items on boosters’ shopping lists usually include medications, batteries, razors, baby formula, DVDs, CDs, consumer electronics, clothes and gift cards. Those items are often sold at flea markets or online auction Web sites.
   Organized retail crime strategies range from complex technological ruses to simple ploys.
   In mid-May, two men walked into an Oswego County Price Chopper and filled up a shopping cart with expensive seafood and meat products and alcohol. At least one man then walked out of the grocery store through a back door, making off with hundreds of dollars worth of stolen goods.
   “They knew what they were doing. In police terms, they might have cased the place,” said Fulton Police Department Lt. Bill Clark.
   Price Chopper security cameras recorded the thieves’ spree. However, it took the supermarket chain owned by the Rotterdam-based Golub Corp. a few days after the incident to notify law enforcement officials of the theft. Police have not arrested the men, but officers are pursuing some leads, Clark said.
   Herbert Golder, a Rhode Island resident, is a professional shoplifter who stole hundreds of DVDs from Northeast stores before getting caught in Colonie in March 2006. Unlike the Price Chopper duo, he attempted to make off with his bounty of $998 in DVDs by walking out the front door of an f.y.e. on Wolf Road.
   Golder was emboldened by a “booster bag”: a plastic bag lined with foil and covered with duct tape that defeats electronic sensors. But his exit from the Colonie entertainment store hit a snag when a suspicious store manager stopped Golder.
   Police later apprehended Golder and his loaded booster bag. They also found an additional $10,000 worth of stolen DVDs in the trunk of his car. Those items had been lifted from Borders and f.y.e. stores in the region, downstate and New England.
   In February, Golder pleaded guilty to a felony charge of possession of stolen property.
‘THESE GUYS ARE GOOD’
   Trans World Entertainment, the Albany-based parent of the For Your Entertainment or f.y.e. chain, incurs hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses annually because of organized retail crime. Yet Trans World Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Higgins described the Golder case as an isolated incident.
   “That’s something we have well under control,” said Higgins. But he conceded, “These guys are good.”
   State lawmakers are also trying to get organized retail crime under control. Earlier this month, the Senate passed a bill that would create penalties for professional shoplifters who use booster bags and other anti-security devices.
   The bill, which lacks an Assembly sponsor, would make the possession of the bags a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison. The Retail Council will attempt to get the booster bag bill sponsored by Sen. Charles Fuschillo, R-Merrick, passed in the Assembly before the Legislature adjourns at the end of the month.
   Another Fuschillo bill that the Retail Council is rallying behind is legislation that would expand the list of items itinerant vendors are prohibited from selling at fl ea markets.
   State regulations already forbid itinerant or mobile vendors from selling at flea markets baby formulas and over-the-counter drugs, which are high theft items. The legislation, which the Senate passed in May, would add cosmetics and batteries to the list.
FIGHTING BACK
   However, New York’s victories against organized retail crime so far have not been legislative, Potrikus said. Instead, retailers have made more progress in establishing stronger relationships with state and federal law enforcement agencies.
   In April, the NRF announced a partnership with the FBI to establish a Law Enforcement Retail Partnership Network. The LERPnet allows retailers and law enforcement officials to share retail crime information via a confidential database.
   Potrikus said LERPnet will help retailers “pick away at” organized retail theft rings. The Retail Council and Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares this summer will begin discussing ways to develop a localized version of NRF’s retail crime information-sharing network.
   “What this all comes back to is who’s paying for this, and it’s you and me and every other honest shopper,” said Potrikus.  

  
  
  

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when they are saying things like "I'll be right wit chew."  And the cashier to the customer ahead of us, "....I ain't never not going to....."  

MC1, you are just toooo funny! But so true!

I wonder, do they hire the people who can't speak good English and 'appear' to be not too educated, because no one else wants the jobs? Or is Wal-Mart, in fact, just exploiting and using them? Perhaps they specifically look for the 'apparent' less educated, without a mind of their own, so they can continue to run their Wal-Mart steam rolling machine.

I'm tellin' ya, Wal-Mart is ruthless!!

Quoted from mikechristine1

Senders, check out today's gazette, the business section, big story of Walmart employee theft at the Glenville store.

Hey admin, can you post that article?  (the way the schenectadyny board puts up gazette stories)

Personally I've seen better at Glenville, the employees and the customers, but admitedly we are there that often so I don't know if I'm missing anything.

But the Rotterdam store, sure there are undesirable customers given the bordering of the city.  But in many cases the employees leave a lot to be desired.  Certainly there are immigrants so accents might be part of their speaking, but how can any human resources person hire, and a department manager allow, an employee to continue to be employed when they are saying things like "I'll be right wit chew."  And the cashier to the customer ahead of us, "....I ain't never not going to....."  

They are probably Ms.Savage's prodigys.....considering she doesn't think it necessary for immigrants, much less folks born here, need to learn English (proper English) as a primary language....she gives no leadership in the realm of folks being able to move up in this county.....she likes 'cheap labor'......

I drove behind Wal-Mart today and it is truly a mess! The fence is 'again' broken and the weeds and dead trees really add to the rural, small town feel. I don't know how those people can look out their windows and see that everyday. I'd be screaming. Where is the code enforcer? Off for the summer?

Well, I guess this is dead in the water, huh? Wal-Mart knew the residents and the town(code enforcer) would cave. Gee, perhaps if it was on the aquifer, we could go the the county and they would take some action like they did for Marotta's place, huh?

If we keep our heads down when walking or driving down Patton Drive and look at the 'nice new driving surface' (without sewers)...the fence will just....fffaaade into the background where Rotterdam keeps all it's other 'garbage'......

It looks like someone finally figured out a way to make the fence look better, fix it yourself. Now the town is checking into the area again and Walmart is looking for someone to maintain it's property.

http://www.dailygazette.com

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ROTTERDAM
Neighbors: Fix Wal-Mart’s fence
Town wants meeting with plaza managers
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

   Madeline Witecki doesn’t mind the dilapidated fence along Patton Drive, but that’s just because she’d otherwise have a front-yard view of Wal-Mart’s loading docks.
   The longtime resident said the wooden fence line once looked sharp when the county’s fi rst Wal-Mart opened more than a decade ago. But the fence and the area around it have long since fallen into disrepair.
   Today, refuse often gathers along the Wal-Mart side of the fence and sometimes spews through holes caused by vandals. The evergreen trees that once ran along the fence near the Altamont Avenue intersection have browned and shed most of their needles.
   And while she hasn’t formally complained to the town about the property, Witecki said, she’d like to see it kept in better shape.
   Other residents, however, have complained to the town. Town public works officials indicated they have received recently at least one formal complaint about the fence, while another resident presented the Town Board with a transcript of complaints originating from an online community forum
   Town officials are now calling for a meeting with representatives from Wal-Mart and Nigro Companies, which owns the adjoining shopping plaza, to discuss a beautification effort for the surrounding areas. Supervisor Steven Tommasone said the informal talks would be focused on identifying ways the businesses and the town could work together in order to make the area around the plaza more aesthetically pleasing and pedestrian friendly.
   “I’m hopeful we’ll be able to put something together here for the residents that live along Patton Drive,” he said.
   Wal-Mart is also in the process of planning a multimillion-dollar renovation of the interior of its building, town officials indicated, and permits for this renovation could be used as a bargaining chip to sway the company into improving other parts of the property.
   Tommasone said the town recently paved Patton Drive and is now looking into doing sidewalk improvements along the area. He said a project to fix the troublesome fence line would pair nicely with the town’s efforts in that area.
   “The town is investing our tax dollars into sidewalk improvement, so we want to sit down and talk about what other improvements we can do,” he said.
   Attempts to contact officials from Nigro and Wal-Mart’s regional offices in Albany were unsuccessful.
   Store Manager Chip Plowman said Wal-Mart is in the process of hiring a new landscaper to tend the swath of property. He said the company also has a work order in to repair the fence. “We’re cleaning it up,” he said.
   But every time the fence gets fixed, Plowman said, vandals seem to come by and break it again. He said he even tried leaving a section of fence open near the Patton Drive entrance to the plaza, so pedestrians could walk through. Still, segments of the fence were broken just days after workers repaired the fence in May,
   “People keep kicking it out,” he said.
   Tommasone said the frequent vandalism is an indication the company needs a more permenant solution for the problem. He suggested a fence constructed of durable material.
   “The fence needs to be replaced,” he said. “We’re just hopeful we can sit down and come up with a solution in the long term.”  

  
  
  

Quoted from Shadow

It looks like someone finally figured out a way to make the fence look better, fix it yourself. Now the town is checking into the area again and Walmart is looking for someone to maintain it's property.

Yeah,, that's funny---how many landscapers and property managers are in the area??---I see quite a few.....walmart can afford to pay for top notch cleanup maintenance and building materials......

And in respond to this Gazette article, first I say thank you Justin Mason for an excellent article. Keep up the good work. (too bad Justin didn't mention the actual name of this forum...it would have increased membership - perhaps next time) He is getting almost as good as that Jessica from the spotlight news!

But let  me say that I give kudos to BigK, cause he said on this forum that he went to the town meeting with printed copies of our discussions about this fence. And thanks to the town board 'majority' for listening and acting. Of course it isn't accomplished yet, but the new fence that goes up better not be the wooden, low grade, stockade fence like the existing one.

Come on guys/girls lets get some ideas down on this forum on what 'should' go there!!!!

Drive down route 50 and check out that CVS.....that would be very very nice......