Dollar Stores Under Fire
Oh look. Nanny government types have zeroed in on a new enemy: dollar stores.
The same people who want to place “sugary drink warnings” on colas now want cities to ban stores that sell items customers want at prices they can afford.
Why won’t the poor just shop at Whole Foods like everyone else? They have the creamiest camembert around and their little bags of gourmet granola are so much healthier than those no-name “toasted Os” cereals they sell for a buck at the dollar joints.
Yep, the truffle-oil-and-quinoa crowd decided that Dollar Tree, Dollar General and Family Dollar stores are bad for communities and must be banned. Naturally, some blockheaded politicians are dutifully following through.
(We in Tidewater should have a soft spot for Dollar Tree. The chain, with 15,000 stores, is headquartered in Chesapeake. It was founded by the philanthropic Brock family who brought Virginia Beach the stunning Brock Environmental Center on the Lynnhaven River.)
According to City Journal writer Steve Malanga, these affordable “small-box” stores are being blamed for increasing poverty in low-income neighborhoods and fostering so-called food deserts, because they claim supermarkets don’t want to locate in proximity to a dollar store.
“Communities like Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Fort Worth, Birmingham, and Georgia’s DeKalb County have passed restrictions on dollar stores, prompting numerous other communities to consider similar curbs. New laws and zoning regulations limit how many of these stores can open, and some require those already in place to sell fresh food. Behind the sudden disdain for these retailers—typically discount variety stores smaller than 10,000 square feet—are claims by advocacy groups that they saturate poor neighborhoods with cheap, over-processed food, undercutting other retailers and lowering the quality of offerings in poorer communities.”
But that’s nonsense, according to Malanga. In fact, many dollar stores are moving into affluent areas. And he says studies show that folks with a poor diet don’t change their food choices simply because they’re suddenly in close proximity to a supermarket.
“Combatting the ill effects of a bad diet involves educating people to change their eating habits. That’s a more complicated project than banning dollar stores,” Malanga writes.
In December, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported growing concerns in the Atlanta suburbs about the sudden abundance of dollar stores. Several locales have declared dollar store moratoriums.
“ ‘You’ve seen your last dollar store in Stonecrest, (Georgia)’ Mayor Jason Lary said. The proposal to ban the stores sprouted from concerns from residents that the businesses do not provide enough fresh food options and give off a bad image, he said. Dollar stores sell discount goods, packaged foods and limited cold or frozen groceries.”
There’s a peculiar elitism at work here. People who never had to painfully calculate the cost of their groceries before approaching the register tend to sneer at folks who shop in no-frill places offering small amounts of plain food at cut-rates.
Of course, they also sneer at Walmart shoppers and Chick-fil-A customers, but that’s another post for another day.
On Sunday, a woman from Washington state named Elaine, who Tweets under the handle @elbh, explained how critical dollar stores were to her family after she and her husband lost their jobs on the same day in 2007.
Elaine took on the “food scolds,” with a message that they should stop trying to tell people where to shop and what to eat.
Amen, sister.
