I'm not disputing the good or bad of what they do or don't sell. I am just curious how cities are going to fashion laws to prohibit a specific type of store like this that is in most ways a scaled down grocery, albeit without fresh meat/produce/etc.

When I see them all over AL and other states I assume they are actually a BETTER option to what seems to be prevalent nearby which is convenience stores with an even more limited and expensive selection.

This movement will be interesting to watch.

Dollar stores are everywhere. That's a problem for poor Americans

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
I'm not disputing the good or bad of what they do or don't sell. I am just curious how cities are going to fashion laws to prohibit a specific type of store like this that is in most ways a scaled down grocery, albeit without fresh meat/produce/etc.

When I see them all over AL and other states I assume they are actually a BETTER option to what seems to be prevalent nearby which is convenience stores with an even more limited and expensive selection.

This movement will be interesting to watch.

Dollar stores are everywhere. That's a problem for poor Americans

Same fight that has been waged against Walmart. They can legislate and picket and protest all they want, but human nature is human nature. People will buy the cheapest thing regardless of consequence. If that consequence is small local stores can't compete and go away, well, we are seeing that everywhere.

The hope of this legislation is that limiting dollar stores will allow "real" grocery stores to compete. Apparently dollar stores tend to crowd out traditional small grocery stores in poor neighborhoods.

As to legality, the attempt is based in the same power that allows cities to keep topless bars away from churches or residential neighborhoods or to zone slaughterhouses. This is the general police power to regulate for the health and welfare. It is widely accepted that the power exists, and can trump property rights in certain cases.

The question is, of course, does the goal to be achieved permit that interference. There is a lot of constitutional law about what test is to be applied to what infringements of rights and when the regulation is permitted. In this case, I don't know what zoning about density of a certain kind of store would be upheld and what wouldn't be.

I, personally, would not permit such regulation, but I don't know what the law will allow. You need a real zoning expert to answer such questions.

I just saw a meme, which I'm not able to post here, but it shows a pic of a Dollar General, the caption says what will be found by the invaders in Area 51. I lol'ed.

It’s Michelle Obamas old “food desert”argument. The logic is poor people don’t buy healthy food because there is none where they live. The truth is stores stock what sells. Healthy food doesn’t sell in the hood.

In addition to what JHE888 said, look for local municipalities to follow a three-pronged approach.

First, they can (legally or illegally) play games with permitting, make the permitting process a nightmare (either denying permits outright, making them time-consuming, hard or expensive to get, imposing fees, taxes, security or other parking restrictions, or citing "community concerns"/"community groups") and/or "negotiate" with dollar-store companies to diversify more or open fewer stores. It would come as no surprise to learn that the cities would work with existing community groups or encourage community groups to form through contacts with the "advocacy industry" in order to discourage dollar stores or create competitive disadvantages for them. This is because those groups could also put pressure on the dollar stores by picketing, encouraging community boycotts on the basis of racism and exploitation, etc.

Second, there may be antitrust/antimonopoly/fair business competition rules, regulations or laws. This would be an especially effective approach if the cities can actually prove that dollar stores are sited to squeeze out potential competitors to a court of law's satisfaction - which it may be possible to do through something as (relatively) cheap and simple as statistical regression analysis. Of course, if the cities can come up with such proof, they may or may not actually need fair trade rules to do what they want to do given the broad "police powers" jhe888 alluded to.

Third, the cities can offer preferential benefits - for example, tax breaks, relief from normal traffic flow restrictions, special zoning, etc. - to encourage regular supermarkets to open up in more poor areas. Those benefits can be thought of as the "carrot" to be used in conjunction with the "stick" of making it harder for grocery store chains to open stores in markets within the city that are more profitable or otherwise attractive to grocery store chains in and of themselves. Remember, grocery stores are incredibly dependent on the quantity of foot traffic - the number of people who actually enter their stores - for profitability.* This means that they have an incentive to oppose dollar stores (and may have originally gone to the cities to make this whole thing an issue). It also means that they're heavily dependent on elements that cities can easily control, like location, policing, street access, hours of operation and so forth.

I don't know exactly what they're going to do here, but those are the types of things I'd be looking for.

*I know, you'd think that would be true of any kind of store. The thing is, though, that the way grocery stores work is that they actually need a certain number of customers per square foot per hour to make their buisness model work. They can't rely on someone coming in and spending a thousand dollars on any given day, so they have to rely on so many people coming in and spending $5 to $20 in any given hour - which is one reason (competetiveness being the other) that they tend to keep a wide variety of cheap items on hand and run sales all the time.

Follow the money. The idea that this is anything but market manipulation is silly.

IF the mayor of Birmingham or Chewbacca Obama cared about the food choices of poor people, SNAP would only be allowed for a menu like the WIC program. No junk, certain types of milk, certain types of cereal, fruits, vegetables and meats.

If that is what SNAP/EBT paid for, guess what these stores would stock? Hmmmmmmm. Yep, you guessed it. No junk, certain types of milk, etc. Dollar General stores in inner cities cater to the EBT crowd. They accept that they'll have so much in losses to get an "in" to that EBT money. If you look at ANY housing project, at least around here, there's a Dollar General close by.

The idea that cities and municipalities are passing limitations on where they can be placed out of concerns for "mom and pop" stores is sickening. The mom and pop stores are free to compete. That's what free market is supposed to be about. But, the use of a government gun to stifle the market is just wrong. It's just another form of a government handout, no different than the mailbox farmers who get paid handsomely to NOT grow crops.

SNAP cards are ghetto credit cards. They are passed from person to person. They are used until they are gone. A Dollar General down the road from where I used to live took in over a two million a year in EBT alone. It wouldn't be uncommon to see carts loaded down with frozen pizza, chips, two liters, Twinkees, etc totaling a couple of hundred dollars after the first of the month. That and little ghetto kids with baby mommas snap card buying all of their friends candy and sodas and swiping it like it was an American Express.

This is the real issue. "Mom and Pop" stores can't take the over head hits from theft in "poor" neighborhoods. That's why they close in the first place.

I think this just plays out that the government has to prop up "Mom and Pop" stores financially, or the Dollar Stores are the wave of the future. They are the only ones that can survive in that market.

A little research would probably show that a lot of the locations those Dollar Stores are moving into were once grocery stores that could not turn a profit in the area.

Several major grocery chains moved into Detroit and within a few years began closing stores because, primarily due to highs shrinkage, they could not be profitable.

There are 2 Dollar General's recently built near me. They are near the area's higher income neighborhoods & straddle a Krogers & a Publix. I never see many autos in the parking lots as I go by.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
They can legislate and picket and protest all they want, but human nature is human nature.
People will buy the cheapest thing regardless of consequence.
If that consequence is small local stores can't compete and go away, well, we are seeing that everywhere.

You are misinformed or rather inaccurate.
Everything is not about PRICE.
However, it is true the market will sort it out if left alone.
Cheap shit can sell but it is not the only thing that matters.
It is about competing and price is only one factor.

There's a YOutube channel where the guy tries food bought at dollar stores. Most of it gets rated pretty low, although once in a while he finds a gtem.
But most of it, if you actually look at wha you get for the price you pay, is more expensive per unit than a better product at a grocery store.

But some people only see "it's a dollar" and fail at math.

In the county I live in they placed restrictions on new fast food and carryout places because county officials felt that these stores were making the county look low income and they instead wanted to attract nice sit down restaurants. These restaurants would then attract new higher income homeowners. Similar restrictions are often placed on pawn shops and check cashing shops.

quote:

This is the real issue. "Mom and Pop" stores can't take the over head hits from theft in "poor" neighborhoods. That's why they close in the first place.

Not just Mom and Pop shops.
This Kroger turned a profit 1 year out of the 25 it was open.
https://www.wcpo.com/news/loca...ing-company-confirms
The last 6 years it was open lost nearly 5 MILLION dollars!!!!!!

Many years ago when I was first starting out and didn't have much money, I lived in Camden NJ. Not exactly middle class. Anyway there was only one full service grocery store with fresh fruit and a decent selection of other healthy products in the area. One problem. The store had to pay two off duty Camden police officers to provide security due to theft. That ain't cheap. That of course raised prices to cover the cost. I left for greener pastures shortly after (no surprise) the store closed.

quote:

Originally posted by zoom6zoom:
There's a YOutube channel where the guy tries food bought at dollar stores. Most of it gets rated pretty low, although once in a while he finds a gtem.
But most of it, if you actually look at wha you get for the price you pay, is more expensive per unit than a better product at a grocery store.

But some people only see "it's a dollar" and fail at math.

I do work for them DollarTree and DollarSomething, if you saw the back of the house one these places you'd wipe your M&M's with disinfectant wipes before touching them. I've yet to see one that is well maintained and clean. The piles of boxes and pallets of merchandise piled to unsafe levels seems to me to be mouse/rat heaven.

Out of curiosity I checked products/prices. All their stuff is smaller or sample sized stuff. If you bought at grocery store while on sale or at Costco you pay way less per unit. That is how I buy stuff. Cheaper by the gross and I use it a lot, and it can't spoil, I'll take it.

Always buy your stuff at price per LB, OZ, Gram, Quart, Deciliter, etc. Almost always best strategy, unless you are buying lettuce or other perishables.

We did a 3k mile road trip a couple years ago. As a joke I told the wife, to keep her busy like we used to do the kids, that she should count Dollar General stores... she did, LOL! Keeping tally on a notebook.

76

Not 76 generic "Dollar" type stores, 76 Actual Dollar General stores.
We passed or were in sight of 76 different DGs in less than a week.

I like them fine, often convenient. Closest actual grocery is 10 miles away.

There was already one 5 miles from the house and another 2 about 10 miles away in opposite directions. Our little burg of ~500 went ape shit when they wanted to build one here, said it would devastate the local businesses. Both of them . The troops were rallied, Facebook was engaged, protesting commenced and they successfully stopped the rezoning of the property. DG just moved the site 3 or 4 miles down the road to an already properly zoned property and built another store anyway.

Around here they very rarely use any existing buildings... they are new propose built, virtually identical and many are in rural locations. At slow times they are sometimes staffed by only one person who has to stop stocking shelves to check you out!

Disclaimer: I do have some DG stock...

I live in central Florida just south west of Disney. The area we live in is middle class to upper middle class. Within 1 mile stretch on the road we have out side our development we have a Dollar General,Dollar Tree and a Family Dollar. Now they are building a Bellow Five in between them all. I don't think store placement has to do with income level as much as what people are willing or able to spend. Housing cost have been skyrocketing all around us and I think people on a tight budget my tend to shop in stores like this more often.

So, these guys open their stores where there are no existing grocery stores nearby (that's their business model) and then are blamed for there being no grocery stores near them.

Lots of ban-mentality geniuses out there, confusing cause with effect. You could nuke all the dollar-stores there are, and that wouldn't suck grocery stores in to replace them.

As to whether or not dollar-stores are adding value, that's up to the market. Convenience is a value-add. You can get stuff far cheaper than at your gasoline station or 7-11....but their success says that customers are OK paying more for having stuff handy. I think that model is what the dollar-stores are trying for.

It is not up to some tin-plated mini-dictator in city father's robes to say this won't be appreciated by their constituents - why shouldn't their constituents get a say in that?

If these clowns wanted to get grocery stores into their communities, they would do far better to understand why stores are staying away...might have to do something about pilferage/shoplifting and other petty crimes, and publicly back their police now and again. Horrors!

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
They can legislate and picket and protest all they want, but human nature is human nature.
People will buy the cheapest thing regardless of consequence.
If that consequence is small local stores can't compete and go away, well, we are seeing that everywhere.

You are misinformed or rather inaccurate.
Everything is not about PRICE.
However, it is true the market will sort it out if left alone.
Cheap shit can sell but it is not the only thing that matters.
It is about competing and price is only one factor.

It is to the people cheap stores market to. Were it not so, Walmart would not be as huge as it is while selling disposable garbage from China.

As was mentioned previously, and some don't seem to realize, is that local governments often limit the number of business types that operate in their jurisdiction.

Check into businesses like liquor stores, pawn shops, places that retail adult clothing/toys, used car lots, fireworks, and many more. There are X number of licenses granted, and once that number is reached there will be no more.