Walmart is opening up new (smaller) stores with a different name: Marketside. Walmart says the stores are “planned to be a friendlier, higher-end neighborhood grocery store.” Unfortunately (and fortunately, I guess), that is exactly what Hercules residents need.

Is this what Walmart plans to propose for the Parcel C property that they dubiously own? If they do, it is certainly a step in the right direction, although any Walmart-owned business may potentially be a tough sell to City Council and around town.

Many people are against Walmart as a corporation altogether, not only as a big-box cheap-goods retailer (one that does not match the demographics of the growing city of Hercules), not to mention that a Walmart-on-the-Bay makes no sense whatsoever (and would be devastating to small businesses in the Waterfront). This anti-corporate point-of-view was highlighted in a recent anti-Walmart email campaign…

Heads up… Wal-Mart could be coming to your neighborhood, but you wouldn’t know it just by looking at the new stores.

That’s because Wal-Mart has gone stealth with a new chain of smaller convenience stores called Marketside. With new colors and designs — and no mention of the word “Wal-Mart” whatsoever — these stores are the retail giant’s attempt to further saturate communities and creep into urban areas across the country, but without letting people know who’s reaping the profits.