Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento — Amazon.com Inc. is giving bricks-and-mortar retailers yet another reason to fume.
As the online giant begins its quest to overturn a new California law requiring it to collect sales taxes just like its Main Street competitors, its signature gatherers are heading to popular shopping areas to obtain the 500,000-plus signatures the company needs to get the measure on next June's ballot.
Petition workers are swarming popular commercial hubs including Larchmont Village in Los Angeles, Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena and the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego as well as Ralphs, Trader Joe's, Target and other major retailers — many of which have lost sales to Amazon.
"It's a particularly clever shot across the bows" of the big-box stores, said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a former speechwriter for Republican politicians. "It says that not only do we intend to fight you in the court of public opinion but actually we're going to come onto your front porch."
Signature gatherers have long been a familiar presence in malls and outside grocery stores and big-box retailers. The law gives these workers generous access to potential voters in commercial centers.
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