Dollar store state: NC cities strive to halt new dollar stores in their backyards – The Fayetteville Observer

They're popular. They're hated. They're everywhere. Can they be stopped?

Brian Gordon| USA Today Network

In North Carolina, youre rarely far from a Dollar General.

On average last year, a new location opened in the state every eight days. Asheboro, a Piedmont city of 26,000, now has seven stores, four of which are clustered in a three-mile area on the city's south end. Residents hear more are on the way.

Across North Carolina, chain dollar stores are popping up every month - filling urban blocks, rural highways, and suburban strip malls.

In New Bern, six stores sit along the same street, a pair facing each other. In one Wilmington neighborhood, a person can walk to each pillar of the dollar store triumvirate: Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General - in 10 minutes.

Through economic booms and busts, dollar stores have flourished. In fact, crises elevate the demand for their affordable home goods and groceries. The companys stock price has risen 935% since the 2008 recession. In its latest annual report to the Security and Exchange Commission, Dollar General said COVID-19 had a significant positive effect on sales and profits.

North Carolinanow has 930 Dollar Generals, nearly doubling its total since 2008. Only three states currently have more. In 2021, the Tennessee-based company has a goal of opening more than 1,000 new stores nationwide.

Dollar Tree and Family Dollar have smaller footprints in the Tar Heel State, but they too plan ambitious expansion. In its recent SEC filing, Dollar Tree (which boughtFamily Dollar in 2015)statedthe U.S. marketcould support 10,000 additional stores.

Tired of seeing dollar stores multiply unabatedin their backyards, some North Carolina residents have begun to push back. From one city's plan to ban new dollar stores in low-income neighborhoods to anothertown'smulti-thousand-dollar campaign against a single store (featuring a highly-produced music video), North Carolinians have - in just the past few years - galvanized to try to slow down these discount giants.

Propelling these movements are a variety of concerns:access to healthy foods, support for local retail, concerns about crime, and the change of charactersome argue these stores inevitably bring to their neighborhoods.

But whether this resistance will dent dollar storegrowth remains unclear, for while many complain about their ubiquity, people continue to shop at them. A lot.

Though each has dollar in their name, the three leading dollar store brands target different markets.

Dollar Tree sets up primarily in suburbs and sells everything at or close to $1. Dollar General andFamily Dollar focus on lower-income areas and sell a wide-range ofat discounts but for more than a buck. Holding the bigger market share, Dollar General skews more rural; 75% of its stores arelocated in towns with fewer than 20,000 people.

Dollar store aisles are stocked with a wide-range of stuff, from plastic snorkel sets to dog food, light bulbs to onion rings, hair dye to taco dinner kits. Customers typically have their pick between both brand name items and cheaperalternatives.

It's a consistent product, Rick Niswander of EastCarolina Universitys College of Business. When you go in, it kind of looks the same. The types of products that are for sale tend to be the same. It's something that's comfortable, and the price is very low.

Immenseeconomies of scale and detailed logistics, Niswander said, allow these stores to price products cheaply. And insteadof carrying perishable foods that go to waste if unsold, dollar stores focus on more profitable, high-margin items likecleaning products, toiletries, paper goods, drinks, and non-perishable foods.

The construction of new stores is also intentional.

They know exactly what they need, Niswander said. They're going to get better pricing on materials. They know exactly how to make it; they've done it 100 times before.

As of late February, North Carolina had 916 Dollar Generals. For comparison, the state has 192Walmart stores. More than 160 North Carolina cities and towns have at least one Dollar Tree orFamily Dollar. (Family Dollarused to be headquartered in Charlotte.)

Some residents see these stores as convenient. Others embrace them out of necessity.

Im still in college, and we're all broke, said Jessica Petty, a master's studentat UNC Wilmington. So, wego to Family Dollar.

Trends like automation, globalization, union decline, and stagnantwages have hollowedout Americas lower-middle class in a way that's made dollar stores more appealing said Shyam Gouri Suresh, an economics professor at Davidson College.

But while thestores are popular, many say their market saturation comes at the expense of local retail. According to Gouri Suresh, mom-and-pop stores have essentially closed down in part because their traditional customer base has shifted to discount chains.

Others fear the discount chains scare away traditional grocery stores, keeping chunks of the state as food deserts that lack access tonutritious fresh foods. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, close to 1.7 million North Carolinians live in such areas.

Another criticism of discount chains is that they don't do enough to preventviolent crimes. Recent reporting from national outlets like ProPublica, CNN, and NBC News presented claims that low staffing at the major dollar store chains- which tend to be located in higher-crime areas -left employees vulnerable to armed robberies.

North Carolinians have seen these threats firsthand.

One night in February 2018, Brittany Fitzgerald was closing down the Dollar Tree in east Burlington where she worked as an assistant manager. Like every evening, she was carrying cash from that evenings sales which she was to deposit at a local bank. But when she and another employee were leaving the store, she heard a deep voice say, Give me the money and saw a manflash a gun.

The person ran off before Fitzgerald could make a decision, but the experience left her shaken and frustrated. Before the incident, she said she'dasked her managerabout hiring a security guard several times.

We asked for it and nothing was done, she said.

Following the incident, Fitzgerald gave her two weeks notice and landed a new job at another area dollar store. A year later, her old Dollar Tree was the site of an armed robbery.

In a statement to the USA Today Network, Dollar Tree spokesperson Kayleigh Painter wrote: "Our Company recognizes that we sometimes open stores in markets where other retailers choose not to operate and we are proud to serve these underserved communities. We tailor our store operations, current best practices, and security protocols for each store."

Last June, the company partnered with ADT to enhance security monitoring at many of its stores nationwide. Dollar General did not respond to email and phone questions about its security.

Though she no longer works at a dollar store, Fitzgerald still routinely shops at the many around Burlington. Still, she's made a point of avoiding her former workplace.

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In pockets of North Carolina, residents have startedfighting against incoming dollar stores, including recent grassroots effortsin thecity of Lumberton and in counties like Guilford and Iredell.

Kennedy Smith, a senior researcher for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, an advocacygroup opposing corporate control in communities, has seen anti-dollar store movements nationwide gain momentum since around 2018, with "a significant uptick in the last year."

In September, north of Winston-Salem in the small town of Walnut Cove, residents banned togethertolobby local officials against a plan to add a second Dollar General in their community. Thetown only has a population of 1,600, but over the next several months, residents collected more than 1,000 handwritten signatures against thestore.

Many felt the Dollar General would be a terrible fitamid the surrounding residential neighborhood. If it opened, some vowed to boycott.In January, after an hours-long hearing, the towndenied the store's would-be developer, Teramore Development, a permit. Teramore has appealed the decision.

Ephraim Harrell, a Walnut Cove resident and lead organizer of the anti-store campaign, saidTeramore's local developer, who had previously builtmore than 60 Dollar Generals, told him they'd never received this much pushback from a small town.

Perhaps the developer had never been to Transylvania County.

In late 2019, residents in the mountainous western countyorganized against a prospective dollar store along Route 276 near the county seat of Brevard. Fearing the ramifications of another Dollar General in a county that already had six of them, began the No Dollar in the Holler campaign.

Over the next several months, the campaign raised at least $14,000, and thousands signed petitionsin opposition to the store. Some spoke of buying the property from Dollar General's preferred developer, though the price tag was too steep.

Residents packed intocounty commissioner meetings (until the pandemic hit)and gave testimonials ina series of YouTube videos. Some worriedthe stores corporate faade would ruin theregions county character; others argued the store would threaten local businesses. The new storewas to be builton a floodplain, leaving locals concerned more flooding would come to an area thatalready was often underwater.

A few months into the campaign, theBrevard-based band Pretty Little Goat collaborated with Asheville director James Suttles to produce a anti-dollar storeprotest anthem.

There are all these communities that are feeling like they have no voice in the conversation of a big company like Dollar General coming in and buying a piece of land and plopping a store down, said band member Josh Carter.

In May 2020, a group called the Concerned Citizens of Transylvania County sued Dollar General to preventconstruction, citing the threat the store posed to the local population of Appalachian elktoe mussels, a species protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. The sides settled the following month.

Under the settlement, the store could openbut Dollar General hadto take a series of actions -like planting more native trees and maintaining a sediment pond - that metsome local environmental demands. The company also agreed to put up alternative signage that more ascetically aligned with nearby stores.

I think they were extremely surprised with how relentless the community was about this location, said Elizabeth Thompson, aNo Dollar in the Holler organizer. If not for the pandemic, she feels her neighbors would've taken more collective steps against the site.

But while grassroots efforts in communities like Transylvania aimed to stop individual stores, one major North Carolina city has taken the bold step of trying to codify a dollar store ban into law.

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Wilmington is a city of beaches, history, and food deserts. The coastal city haseight food deserts,lower-income neighborhoods with no large grocery store within a mile.

Some areas of the city, like the historically Black Northside neighborhood, havent had a grocery store since the 1970s. Less access to fresh foods correlates to higher rates ofdiabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.

Several economic factors may keep supermarket chains away, but city officials believe high concentrations of dollar stores - which sell many carb-laden, sugary, and salty foods - are a key cause.

Weve heard from some grocers that when there are certain types of competition nearby in their service area, it really limits what they can do, said Christine Hughes, the citys senior planner.

This year,the city is updatingits land development code, and officials proposedan amendment that would bar new discount variety stores from opening in food deserts. While no North Carolina city has taken this step,other places, like Tulsa, New Orleans, and Dekalb County near Atlanta, have recently passed similar restrictions. Hughes said results elsewhere have been promising.

Yet not everyone is bullish about a ban.

If youre not going to put up more (dollar stores), but youre not putting in Food Lion, then what am I going to do, Jessica Petty, the UNCW student, said.

Dollar Tree spokesperson Kayleigh Painter said, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar complement and operate side-by-side with grocery stores and bring economic development to every community we enter. Dollar stores help alleviate the effects of food deserts in urban communities by helping serve the underserved.

Two weeks ago, Family Dollar announced it would start selling fresh fruits and vegetables at a small number of its stores nationwide. And Dollar General, which did not respond to requests to comment about its impact on food deserts, has starteda higher-end line of stores called DGX that more resemble traditional grocery stores.

Yet it remains difficult, in many areas of Wilmington, to find a fresh piece of fruit for sale. The local city council plans to vote on the new land development code, which includes the dollar store restrictions, later this summer. With food deserts prevalent in urban and rural places across North Carolina, many other local governments may be eyeing Wilmington to see what a dollar store ban delivers.

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April Ziegler wasin the middle of the uproar around Transylvania's new dollar store. Already the manager at oneDollar General in the county, she was slated last year to head the new store her community was rallying against.

In her time as a manager, Ziegler had had a front-row seat to Dollar General's recent rapid expansion across Western North Carolina; the company sent her to soon-to-be-opened stores across the mountains to advise staff on logistics.

"They're not playing," she said of Dollar General's growth aims, noting the chain opened at least three new stores from 2016 to 2020 in Transylvania alone. But instead of backingthe "No Dollar in the Holler" movement,she saw another Dollar General as a simple byproduct of supply and demand.

If you dont want to shop there, then fine, dont shop there, she said. "If people stop feeding Dollar General, then Dollar General doesnt have the revenue to continue their growth. ButIll tell you right now, people that were part of the protesting, who were in the (music) video, they shop at that Dollar General, and that's a fact."

Ziegler remembersone customer, during the height of the protests, asking her to keep his patronage a secret because he was involved in the campaign against the other store. She left the company in the spring of 2020, soon after COVID-19 hit and a few months before the new locationopened.

Elizabeth Thompson said she hasnt shopped at that new Dollar General and has no plans toshop at any Dollar General anywhere in the U.S. ever in my life. Based on the settlement her group reached with the company, she is no longerable to specifically disparage the new Route 276 store.

Reflecting on the campaign,Thompson said she was exhausted".

As the dollar store chains look to enter new areas, the absence of local zoning laws in many rural regions prevents local officials fromstanding in the way.

"We're low-hanging fruit for (dollar store) developers to reach their number goals," Christy Blakely, another "No Dollar in the Holler" organizer, said of Transylvania County.

Even as resistance to new dollar stores strengthensstatewide, some predict the number of new stores will continueclimbing. The chains, and their developers, are motivated to hit their expansion metrics and the local opposition has been isolated.

In its latest SEC report, Dollar General said local government zoning restrictions - like the one proposed in Wilmington -have not materially impaired our ability to complete our planned real estate projects or growth.

Brian Gordon is a statewide reporter with the USA Today Networkin North Carolina. Reach him at bgordon@gannett.com or on Twitter @briansamuel92.

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Dollar store state: NC cities strive to halt new dollar stores in their backyards - The Fayetteville Observer