YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Breanna Coleman packs her children and several bright yellow plastic bags filled with assorted snacks and other products into her SUV at the neighborhood Dollar General on Oak Street on Youngstown’s east side.
For her, the store is convenient. She lives less than three minutes away and doesn’t have to travel far to do some shopping.
“This is a nice store. I come here a lot and I can buy what I need here,” Coleman says as she prepares to leave the parking lot.
Still, Coleman says she would prefer to have a market nearby that stocks fresh produce and meats, which simply does not exist in the immediate vicinity. The nearest grocer is a Save a Lot at the Lincoln Knolls Plaza, where she also shops.
“I wish there were more food options,” she says, and observes certain staple products at the local Dollar General are pricier than at other places. She’s also noticed an inordinate number of similar “dollar stores” popping up across the area. “I think there are too many,” she says.
It’s a dilemma facing the city as it wrestles with the expanding footprint of “small box” retailers – commonly referred to as dollar stores. Over the past 15 years, these establishments have grown precipitously across the communities just as full-service groceries closed their doors. In Youngstown, that market is ruled by three small-box retailers: Dollar General, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree (Family Dollar is a subsidiary brand of Dollar Tree).
On one hand, city officials do not want to appear anti-business yet are pressed to provide a solution to the lack of nutritious inventory in some of the more distressed and lower income neighborhoods – neighborhoods today dominated by dollar and convenience stores. During his first term, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown declared the city a “food desert,” underscoring the lack of access to fresh, healthful foods relative to the city’s population.
On average, Youngstown boasts a higher ratio of dollar stores per population than other northeastern Ohio cities such as Akron and Canton. Both of those communities have taken some type of regulatory action over the last several years to curb the growth of these stores.
The high density of dollar stores in Youngstown has also raised concerns among city officials regarding their upkeep, safety and impact in their communities. These businesses, they say, have served as deterrents to grocery stores investing in the city, have proven easy targets for criminal activity, and have failed to maintain proper aesthetics.
The City’s Position
Nikki Posterli, Mayor Brown’s chief of staff and director of the city’s office of planning and economic development, says the city has examined factors as to why it is so difficult to attract grocery chains to Youngstown. After Bottom Dollar Foods shut all three of its locations within the city in 2014, Youngstown convened a meeting with leading local grocers seeking an answer as to why major grocers were leaving and smaller-box retailers were moving in.
“One of the things we learned is if you sell food in your establishment – whether you’re a convenience store or small-box store – they’re considered a grocery store,” Posterli says.
Based on this classification, the grocery chain Giant Eagle informed the city two years ago that it had no intentions of moving into the community because its data showed 68 grocery stores in Youngstown, recalls an astonished Posterli. “They’re counting dollar stores, convenience stores, anyplace that sells food,” she says.
The influx of dollar stores over the past decade or so has resulted in a market glut across the city that demands some type of regulation, says Hunter Morrison, the city’s planning consultant: “It gets to the broad zoning issue of oversaturation.”
Indeed, the city has identified 23 small-box stores either within its limits or situated on thoroughfares contiguous with other communities. That means Youngstown – with a projected 2024 population of 58,392 based on U.S. Census data – has a dollar store for every 2,538 residents.
Meanwhile, just four grocery stores lie within Youngstown city limits: a Sparkle Market in Cornersburg on the city’s west side, and three Save A Lot groceries that serve the north, south and east sides. This computes to a single full-service grocery store for every 14,600 residents.
Akron’s population, for example, stands at 186,888 and is home to 32 small-box stores, or one for every 5,840 residents. Based on media reports, Canton, with a population of 68,646, is home to just 14 small-box stores, or one for every 4,903 residents. In April, that city approved a year-long moratorium on new construction of these stores.
Youngstown is considering a similar measure. The rationale is to allow time for planning and zoning specialists to develop proper codes that would better manage any negative effects of saturation, Morrison says.
This could result in mandating that new dollar stores reserve a certain percentage of their shelf space – at least 15% – to fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy. Brunswick, Ohio, for example, not only adopted such an ordinance but also prohibits the construction of a new dollar store within two miles of an existing small-box retailer.
“We’ve looked at what other cities have done. One of the things is to take a pause here – to put a moratorium on to look more carefully at what are the impacts. What are the options?” Morrison says.
Morrison thinks small-box stores also hurt other establishments.
He points to the closures in recent years of pharmacies in neighborhoods across the city where dollar stores prevail. “I think one of the issues is that the dollar stores are picking up a lot of nonpharmacy sales,” he says, creating an adverse market for local drugstores. “So, where does someone on the South Side go to get their prescription filled [once that pharmacy closes]? It’s having an adverse impact on consumer choice.”
Furthermore, small-box retailers tend to cluster in certain areas of the city. A motorist driving a stretch along Oak Street as it transitions to McCartney Road on the East Side, for example, can count five dollar stores within two miles.
At Mahoning Plaza on Youngstown’s west side, a Family Dollar and Dollar General are less than 90 feet apart, while a Dollar Tree is .02 mile east on Mahoning Avenue.
After Giant Eagle closed its Cornersburg store on Canfield Road in 2008, a Dollar General moved right in, well in sight of a Family Dollar a half mile away.
When the city took control of a former Bottom Dollar property on Glenwood Avenue, among the first calls about the site was from Dollar General, Posterli remembers. The building sits directly across the street from a Family Dollar store.
“They’re on top of each other,” Morrison says.
Posterli adds that upkeep has been a problem with several of these sites within the city as well. A moratorium would buy time to develop a plan to control their growth, ensuring that closed pharmacies, for example, are filled with businesses that are more responsive to community needs.
Dollar Stores and Nearby Needs
There are those, however, who contend these stores fill a void that the larger grocers have abandoned.
Chuck Bakes lives along Hazelwood Avenue on the West Side, within walking distance to Mahoning Plaza along Mahoning Avenue.
On one recent afternoon, Bakes is at a bus stop that fronts the plaza, waiting for a family member to pick him up. He often relies on either public transit or family for transportation. So you’re likely to find him shopping at either Dollar General or Family Dollar in the plaza, he says.
“These places do good because it’s further away from Walmart or an Austintown Plaza,” he says. “Everybody on this end – we frequent these because they’re close,” he says.
While it might be convenient, staple foods at these stores are often priced higher than at larger grocers. A reporter recently observed that a gallon of milk at a Dollar General sells for $3.85 per gallon, on average $1.30 more when compared with retail grocers in nearby Austintown.
A neighborhood customer who identified herself only as Jessa says she often shops at the Dollar General at Mahoning Plaza. “These are great people who work at this store and they’re getting caught in the mix,” she says.
Absent a grocer who sells fresh foods in the neighborhood, Jessa says these stores fill a needed gap. “I live a couple blocks away and I walk up here a lot,” she says.
Data show that Dollar General boasts 19,809 sites in 48 states and territories and 7,687 cities across the United States. According to statistics, the company saw its net sales grow from approximately $9 billion a year in 2007 to $38.7 billion in 2023.
Dollar Tree Inc., based in Chesapeake, Va., reported consolidated net sales of $30.6 billion for fiscal 2023, according to regulatory filings. These include net sales at its Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and Enterprise brands. Net sales at Dollar Tree increased 5.8% during the year while Family Dollar sales grew by 3.2%. But they were off 1.2% during the fourth quarter compared to year-ago figures, the company reported.
The company announced earlier this year that it would close 600 Family Dollar stores across the country. In April, five in the Mahoning Valley region were closed – none in Youngstown.
Targets of Criminal Activity
The ubiquity of dollar stores across the city has also prompted concerns as to whether they’ve become primary targets for crime.
Many of the stores are thinly staffed – sometimes with just a single employee in the building. Dollar General’s newest store at 1001 Bears Den Road, for example, has three automated checkout kiosks and just one that requires an assistant.
“If you recall, a few years ago the police department was putting out warnings to be careful,” Posterli says, referring to a rash of robberies that targeted dollar stores.
Between Oct. 13 and Nov. 15 of 2018, for example, dollar stores on Youngstown’s West, South and East sides reported 12 criminal incidents, eight of them armed robberies. The others included after hours burglaries and attempted break-ins. In 2020, an employee at the Family Dollar on Canfield Road was abducted when she ran after thieves who broke in and stole merchandise. She was released unharmed.
According to a criminal analysis compiled for all of 2023, nearly every dollar store within the city’s police jurisdiction reported a crime. These criminal acts range from larceny to armed robbery and burglary, data show. In one case, a motor vehicle was stolen from a parking lot.
City police logged 81 criminal incidents reported by dollar store locations throughout 2023, the vast majority larceny calls, but six were robberies, data show. Dollar stores concentrated on the East Side – there are six – reported the most incidents with 31. The bulk of these crimes – 14 of them theft and another an armed robbery – targeted a single location, the Dollar General at 1504 Oak St. A second site, a Family Dollar at 1833 Oak St., was hit with theft twice in a single day, the analysis shows.
The Bears Den Road site on the West Side, records show, was broken into on Aug. 18 of last year, not long after the store opened.
And on April 11 of this year, an unknown suspect walked into a Family Dollar at 2708 Glenwood, filled a basket with approximately $630 worth of baby products, and fled through the employees-only back door. It was the fourth time that the same suspect has shoplifted from the store, according to the police report.
Dollar General replied in a statement that the company is “committed to providing a safe environment for employees and customers. We have invested and will continue to invest in various security measures, as appropriate for each store. To protect the integrity of these measures, we do not publicly comment on their details.”
Family Dollar/Dollar Tree did not respond to an email seeking comments for this story.
A Deterrent for Grocers?
Among the biggest concerns for residents, say city officials and community leaders, is that the influx of dollar stores has deterred grocers from investing in the inner city, thereby depriving neighborhoods of healthful food options.
Rigoberto Lopez, a professor at the University of Connecticut’s department of agriculture and resource economics, says there is a correlation between the entry of dollar stores in a community and the exit of independent grocers.
“When these dollar stores come to town, they’re a chain. They have a network, a whole machinery. They have a business model that works,” Lopez says. “They go where no one else will go,” he adds, noting it’s not unusual to find high concentrations of these stores in low-income areas.
However, according to a study Lopez headed last year, the entry of dollar stores in a community corresponds with an average 5.7% decrease in sales among independent grocers and a 3.7% reduction in employment. Moreover, the entry of dollar stores in the market increases by 2.3% the likelihood of retail grocers leaving the business or the area. “It’s more likely that an independent grocer will shut down a year or two after a dollar store arrives,” he says. “They can’t out-compete them.”
And, Lopez says, once a customer spends money at one of these stores, the bulk of those dollars is funneled to corporate offices. Aside from taxes and payrolls, little more is pumped back into local economies.
It nevertheless leaves cities like Youngstown in a quandary where oversaturation of dollar stores threatens not just new investment, but independent businesses as well.
“The moratorium is a stopgap while we work on our redevelopment code,” says 3rd Ward Councilwoman Samantha Turner. Although she acknowledges these discount stores fill a need throughout their communities, they also fall short of providing nutritional needs for families, particularly children and the elderly.
To address these concerns, community groups such as Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods, or Action, have launched mobile initiatives to bring fresh food options to “food desert” neighborhoods throughout the city.
“We’ve got to give our community an alternative,” says Rose Carter, executive director of Action. “We definitely agree with a moratorium and even closing some.”
Two years ago, the nonprofit organization launched its “Mobile Market,” a truck the size of a small bus that is stocked with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy products. Its objective is to visit areas of the city where residents have limited – or in some cases no – access to these foods.
“There are a lot of senior citizens who lack transportation,” Carter says. “Last year, we did 532 stops and served more than 22,000 people.”
In a statement, Dollar General says that it has since stocked fresh vegetables, fruit and other healthful items at more than 5,000 of its stores, including one at the DG Market in Lincoln Knolls Plaza on Youngstown’s East Side.
“Every Dollar General store offers components of a nutritious meal including canned and frozen vegetables, canned fruits, proteins, grains, dairy, and more,” the company said. “We currently offer fresh fruits and vegetables in more than 5,400 DG stores, giving us more individual points of produce distribution than any other U.S. mass retailer or grocer.”
And, Dollar General said it supports local causes and charities.
“We address food insecurity through our nationwide Feeding America partnership, which includes more than $3 million in donations and in-kind donations equal to more than 24 million meals since 2021, and our local donations support the Second Harvest Food Bank of Mahoning Valley to help nourish neighbors in need,” the company said.
Moratoriums and other regulatory constraints ultimately do more harm than good, according to the company. “We believe restrictive measures harm communities by limiting customer choice, convenience and affordability, particularly in inflationary times, and forcing customers to travel farther and/or spend more to access basic household and food items.”
Pictured at top: This Dollar General at 1504 Oak St. is one of six dollar stores that operate on Youngstown’s East Side.