I wrote a letter to Walmart - didn't know about the petition - about 2 years ago when the were about to close the fabric dept. I got a crummy response saying they were sorry.
I agree that they had no idea how many people came in for fabric and sewing related stuff who also bought many other items because they were already in the store. I too almost never go there now whereas I used to shop there at least 3 times a month just to see what they had in new fabric.
They did have bolts of fabric that had been there for many years. You would have thought that if they had gotten rid of the unsellable stuff they could have replaced it with stuf that would sell.