Voters in Inglewood, California, rejected a ballot initiative

Voters in Inglewood, California, rejected a ballot initiative that would have allowed a 60-acre Wal-Mart shopping complex to be built without being subject to many state and local regulations. Sixty percent of the voters in the racially mixed working-class Los Angeles suburb said no in the referendum. Wal-Mart had sought broad exemption from regulation in a campaign that cost more than $1 million. “I think that it means that Wal-Mart has to go through the front door and deal with cities and communities as equals,” concluded Madeline Janis-Aparicio, leader of the Coalition for a Better Inglewood.