Rendering of the proposed Fort Totten Square Walmart.

When the New York Times recently reported on a vast bribery scheme by Walmart in Mexico, the world’s biggest retailer should have been prepared for some pushback in the U.S. And according to the Gray Lady, that pushback is coming as cities across the country increase their scrutiny of proposed stores in the wake of the growing international scandal.

But in D.C., it’s doesn’t seem that any amount of bad news will put the brakes on what will eventually be six Walmart stores (the renderings are below) in the city by 2014. Though anti-Walmart groups have used the news to renew their campaigns against the retailer’s arrival in the city, the fact that the majority of the sites are privately held and thus insulated from public pressure means that there’s little chance that the Mexican scandal will derail Walmart’s arrival in D.C.

Five of the six planned Walmart’s are being built on private land, and the retailer isn’t taking any public funds—even though it could have been eligible for tax exemptions given to supermarkets that set up in underserved areas. (The retailer did sign a community benefits agreement with D.C., though it’s largely unenforceable.) The closest that anti-Walmart activists have gotten to slowing the retailer’s arrival was a last-minute attempt to declare a bus barn on the planned Georgia Avenue site a historic building worth protecting; the tactic failed.

Regardless, last week anti-Walmart group Respect D.C. put out a statement asking that the D.C. Council to whatever it could to stop the retailer’s expansion into D.C., citing the Mexican bribery scandal as an example of why Walmart can’t be trusted:

“This sordid episode demonstrates that Walmart tolerates lawbreaking in pursuit of market expansion and dominance,” said Dyana Forester of Respect DC. “Yet even that’s not the worst of it. Walmart’s clear efforts to sweep this bribery scandal under the rug, its failure to notify the U.S. and Mexican governments of apparent lawbreaking, and its subsequent promotions of the official who spearheaded the bribery and Mike Duke to CEO show that Walmart is still infected by a corrupt corporate culture.

“Walmart continues to show that it cannot be trusted,” Forester charged. “We call on Mayor Gray and the DC Council to put a halt on all permitting for Walmart’s proposed stores in DC, until a full investigation by the federal government is completed. Furthermore, we demand a local investigation of Walmart and its local developers’ political giving, as well as so-called ‘philanthropy’ to elected leaders, organizations, and public agencies here in DC.”

That philanthropy has been well-documented, and is certainly one of the ways Walmart slipped into D.C. without much formal opposition.

The first Walmart set to open in D.C. will be the Georgia Avenue location; it’s expected for 2013. The remaining stores will likely open in 2014.

DC Renderings 1