Ethnicity and language are not among them.
One would hope that Salt Lake City Council members will not rush headlong into approving a $2.1 million loan and a $1.5 million sales tax rebate for the project just to prove they are not as fearful and ignorant as were some of the comments they heard Tuesday evening.
That is a lot of money, virtually all that's available in the city's loan fund. And the fact that the proposed business has an ethnic motif that fits the neighborhood doesn't negate the fact that it's another out-of-town retail giant that could harm locally owned businesses, businesses that don't just cater to the local Latino community but are part of it.
But.
The Mexican supermarket Gigante and ancillary shops would be a boon for a part of town that has been left behind economically. Projections call for 500 full-time jobs, $56 million in annual sales and $3.7 million a year in sales taxes. Like good free-marketeers, its developers have chosen a substantially Latino neighborhood where shoppers would feel at home.
But that, sadly, is the rub for a couple of supposed neighborhood representatives who objected to any city support for the project. It would, they said, increase the “Balkanization” of the city and create an atmosphere that is hostile to non-Latinos.
Those arguments are absurd.
Salt Lake, like most big cities, has its ethnic neighborhoods. Some are poor and have more than their share of crime. Others thrive by marketing cultural and, especially, culinary variety to a community that might otherwise die of boredom.
Gigante's fans argue that the chain offers a bilingual family-friendly atmosphere, fresh produce and on-site butchers and bakers. The idea that such a business would attract only Latinos, and not draw an ethnic rainbow of customers, insults both the store's owners and our community's consumers, who have been known to appreciate a good bowl of chili verde when they taste it.
The City Council should subject this request to all the due fiduciary diligence. But it smells good from here.
