No offense to Sam Walton’s heirs, but Walmart isn’t on my list of the top 20 places to shop.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, I do occasionally go to the Tracy Walmart with Cynthia and will buy items when I’m there. That said, I rarely go to the Manteca Walmart.

I get that some people may not like the idea that Walmart is going to build a new 181,000 square-foot Supercenter in Manteca. It’s a free country.

But do they really want to make it sound that it will somehow blow up their fantasy that Manteca needs to channel the perfect fictitious world of Seahaven of The Truman Show fame starring Jim Carrey?

They do not have to essentially “diss” the people who shop at Walmart by implying they sell merchandise and food that only the unwashed masses would buy.

Nor should they imply somehow having a newer and large Walmart with more options will only perpetuate the downward death spiral of trendy culture and quaint non-chain store shopping that apparently prompted them to move to Manteca in the first place.

Or my favorite, assert that somehow a Walmart Supercenter surrounded by chain restaurants and retail stores is going it cause their property values to plunge when the closest existing home is a block or so away walled off from the rest of the community by masonry sound walls.

It’s a safe bet that many of their neighbors, if they don’t themselves, shop at Walmart.

A lot of people do. You don’t get to be the world’s largest retailer by misreading markets.

And if you are somehow a notch or two above the monthly struggles people have even with good incomes to keep their heads above water while buying or renting a home that you couldn’t either afford to do so — or didn’t want to — west of the Altamont Pass, please explain a well-documented trend in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere of higher income households filling up carts more and more at Walmart Supercenters.

The self-proclaimed “low price leader” has even noticed and is upping its game in various ways to lure more and more wealthier consumers.

The implied assumption that Walmart and other retailers like Food-4-Less are for lower classes whether you define it by tastes, preferences, or financial situation compared to Fred Meyer or Whole Foods is way off-base.

Would you consider a general physician with an income in the middle six figures “lower class”?

A doctor making that is living in a home her family bought a year ago in southwest Manteca described herself as being “ecstatic” that Food-4-Less is opening a store near her neighborhood.

She’s not worried about her home value plummeting.

That said, why shouldn’t those that shop at Walmart based primarily on price not be afforded the opportunity to have a modern store with a bigger selection in Manteca instead of driving elsewhere such as Tracy.

It has also been implied that it is not safe to shop at Walmart in Manteca because “the parking lot is scary” and that moving the store across the freeway will only bring those problems closer to their neighborhood.

First, we’re talking 1990 design standards versus 2026 design standards.

If it is the behavior of drivers, that is not a Walmart problem per se.

And if it somehow implies to how people on the “other side of the Bypass” drive, rest assured there are idiots and inattentive drivers behind the wheel among those that have moved to Manteca in the past 10 years as well as those that have lived here longer.

If it is the panhandlers/homeless that make it scary, then you really need to get out more and open your eyes when you go places besides Walmart and to other cities.

I have come across of homeless over the years and two of the three times I was on the end of threatening behavior from the homeless were in parking lots patronizing commercial concerns along the Hopyard Road in Pleasanton that were a cut or two above Walmart.

Will the new Walmart create traffic?

Yes, as has every buyer of a new home in Manteca has since 1918.

The proposed location is solid.

It is in an area designed as a commercial buffer and shopping area for homes south of the 120 Bypass with easy on and off freeway access.

It does not send any more traffic through nearby neighborhoods and no more on arterials serving those neighborhoods than homes yet-to-be-built for future consumers who will have to head north to the freeway to shop regardless of where commercial is built.