For a local independent business to compete against corporate chains takes courage, ingenuity and plenty of community support.

Sponsored by Local First Arizona, the fourth annual Certified Local Fall Festival this Saturday will unite more than 60 locally owned businesses at the Duck and Decanter restaurant in Phoenix from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The festival features live music, food and activities for the public.

For businesses, it provides an opportunity to interact with customers and build the clientele necessary to ride out hard economic times.

Kimber Lanning, founder and director of Local First Arizona, said the festival creates a sense of civic pride for Arizona residents.

“All great cities are great because of the local businesses that make them that way,” she said.
Local First Arizona brings more than 1,500 members together to create the largest coalition of independent businesses in the country.

The group began as a grassroots coalition in 2003 called Chain Reaction Arizona — with local pillars like Stinkweeds Record Exchange, Monti’s La Casa Vieja restaurant and Changing Hands Bookstore at its core.

In 2007, the organization became the largest nonprofit of its kind and changed its name to Local First Arizona.

Lanning has a big stake in local business as the owner of independent record store Stinkweeds and the performance venue Modified Arts in Phoenix.

Local First Arizona tries to inform customers about the economic, environmental and cultural benefits of supporting independent business, Lanning said.

“It’s worth it for us to support an Arizona company because they bring in better jobs and they reinvest in the local community,” she said.

Tim James, research professor of economics at the W.P. Carey School, offered a more skeptical economic view.

He said buying services like haircuts at a local barbershop will boost local economy but manufactured goods usually operate on a global scale and do nothing for local economies.

“Apart from buying local services and agricultural products, there is no benefit,” he said. “Service money stays local and that’s obviously beneficial, but all services are [inherently] local.”

However, James said environmental issues benefit from local food production.

“The carbon footprint will definitely go down using truly local famers markets,” he said.

Cindy Dach, general manager of Changing Hands Bookstore, said awareness makes worlds of difference to small business.

“That’s the missing piece,” Dach said. “The consumer doesn’t yet have full awareness of the difference of shopping locally and how shopping at a local store helps their community.”

Dach said the economy affects all business but believes consumers will decide to support local shops even in tough times.

“One thing we’ve noticed is more people are coming to [Changing Hands] and trading in their used books and buying used books,” she said. “So if anything, it’s made our community more green by recycling books.”

Bret Wingert, owner of Souvia Tea in Phoenix, is a charter member of Local First Arizona. He said the ubiquitous chain Starbucks blocked his early attempts to open a store.

“Anybody who has started up their own business knows that it’s not easy,” he said. “Starbucks takes over a lot of the retail space and then excludes anyone else who might be in a remotely related business.”

Wingert eventually found a shopping center in North Phoenix and has operated there since 2006.

Winger said Local First Arizona provides great technical and business-oriented information, as well as networking opportunities.

“Also, it’s kind of a support group,” he said. “You could commiserate with people about the problems that small business people encounter.”

As for hard economic times, Winger said he’s “not participating in the downturn.”

“I’m not getting sucked into the negative energy and we’re continuing to do business as we have,” he said. “We all know those unique local places that we love, that we like to go back to, and that’s what Local First Arizona is all about.”

Reach the reporter at channing.turner@asu.edu.