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posted by takyon on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the nothing-in-that-store-costs-1$-anyway dept.

In a Washington Post story picked up by the S. Louis Post-Dispatch, reporter Rachel Siegel asks the question "Are dollar stores a response to poverty - or a cause?"

The fundamental premise of the story is

fear the stores deter other business, especially in neighborhoods without grocers or options for healthy food. Dollar stores rarely sell fresh produce or meats, but they undercut grocery stores on prices of everyday items, often pushing them out of business.

this creates what is referred to by one patron as a 'food desert'

their unstoppable rise...keeps grocers from opening.

implications are made

With fewer options for fresh food and health care, people in a North Tulsa ZIP code have an average life expectancy of 11 years less than those in South Tulsa, according to a 2015 city report.

"It creates an overall sense of the neighborhood being run-down," said Stacy Mitchell, [of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance]. "It's a recipe for locking in poverty rather than alleviating it."

Contrariwise, these stores

are a vital source of cheap staples

The last Dollar General to open is across the street from a senior citizens home. That store, Henderson said, is a lifeline to residents.

the council thinks it's appropriate for city government to pick winners and losers in the economy.

and while not typical, some do indeed sell fruits and vegetables

grapes, apples, avocados, potatoes sandwiched between bags of fried pork skins and cases of Michelob Ultra.

It's Walmart all over again in a way.

Grocery stores run on thin profit margins - usually between 1 and 3 percent. And they employ more workers than dollar stores to keep perishable food stocked.

"It's no longer the big-box grocery store" that threatens local businesses, said David Procter, a Kansas State University professor who studies rural grocery stores. "But it's the discount retailer that's coming to town and setting up shop right across the street."

Some localities have added restrictions on the stores, for example

Mesquite, Texas, a Dallas suburb, approved changes to its zoning code last year that will limit the number of dollar stores. The guidelines prevent them from opening within 5,000 feet of each other. And stores must dedicate 10 percent of floor space to fresh food.

Tulsa is working to solve the 'food desert' problem they attribute to the stores

This month, a deal was reached with ECO Farms, a local company that focuses on indoor vertical farming to solve food deserts. Two company executives, Jim Bloom and Adam James, said that while this is their first try at a grocery store, they're intent on making healthy food a reality in District 1 - not a luxury.

"We're attending to this as a human right, not a geographic privilege," James said.

However, as the article notes - "grocery stores have struggled here before"

The nearest dollar store to me is about four-five miles (15 minutes or so) on busy backroads. My experiences with them are lack of selection and significant product gaps. Very hit or miss and you just have to go shop somewhere like Kroger or Publix afterwards anyway to finish out your list, so I don't bother as I don't have the time to spend on the extra commute and double shopping.

If everyone was like me dollar stores might not be experiencing the success they very obviously are.
So how about some other perspectives? Do Soylentils love them or hate them? Is this a first world problem?


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @09:39AM (3 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 18 2019, @09:39AM (#802868) Homepage Journal

    The first one.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @10:04AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @10:04AM (#802883)

    Okaaay. But I would have thought tokolosh's post was pretty much the opposite of marxism.
    Also, prices aren't set to keep farmers in business, they are set to maximize profit by every entity that handles that food between the farm and you picking it up in the store.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @03:41PM (1 child)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 18 2019, @03:41PM (#802995) Homepage Journal

      Which is saying the same thing except spread across more links in the chain. Maximized profit is only very rarely achieved on anything by charging as much as you can possibly get anyone to pay. It's usually achieved by charging as much as you can get nearly everyone to pay. Which is then reflected in the things said food producer is forced to buy to produce your food in the first place. Economics isn't a simple system. There are an insane amount of both negative and positive feedbacks even in the most simple aspects of it.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 19 2019, @02:15AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 19 2019, @02:15AM (#803309)

        Yes I know that. I was responding to your assertion that the price was set to keep farmers in business. That is not true, prices are set to maximize profits. If a farmer goes out of business, the distributors will just make it up by jacking up margins on the smaller supply. I've seen it done, where distributors will drive a few farmers into bankruptcy, then point at that as an excuse to raise retail prices, while still screwing the rest of the farmers under contract as hard as they can.