Is Cumberland County experiencing a 'dollar store invasion'? What it means for food access

This article has bene updated to reflect that the DG Market in Godwin is located on Autry Mill Road.

The Cumberland County area has seen three new dollar stores in the last year, bringing the total number to 30.

Most recently, Dollar General’s DG Market opened in May on Autry Mill Road, just outside the county’s northeast border. It’s not a typical dollar store — the market stocks fresh food like produce, dairy and meat.

Though the store has a Godwin address, Mayor Willie Burnette said it doesn’t serve the town’s 129 residents – at a little more than 7 miles from the town’s center, it’s barely closer than the nearest full-service grocery stores in Eastover and Dunn.

“I’ve been trying to get a dollar store here for eight years,” he said. “They keep going down the road.”

With the coming development of 200 new houses in Godwin, the mayor said he hopes that the town can attract a business bigger than a dollar store.

“We’d like to get a grocery store in Godwin,” he said.

Could more dollar stores mean fewer grocery stores?

The proliferation of dollar stores in Cumberland County — at least eight have opened in the past decade — could spell bad news for attracting new grocery stores and keeping existing grocery stores, of which there are about 60.

Dollar stores exploit communities of color and rural areas for profit, while forcing closures of full-service grocery stores and worsening food insecurity, the Institute for Local Reliance’s February report, “The Dollar Store Invasion,” suggests.

“Through predatory tactics, the dollar chains are killing off grocery stores and other local businesses, leaving communities with fewer jobs, diminished access to basic goods, and dimmer prospects for overall well-being,” the report reads.

While there haven’t been instances of dollar stores shutting down grocery stores in the city, Fayetteville City Councilman Mario Benavente said, he'd like to see better grocery options for residents.

He said that if there were a strong community interest in the creation of a co-op grocery store, which would be independently owned by community members who shop there, he would work with the City Council to make information and grants for start-up costs available for the project.

The problem? He said nobody has stepped forward to run it.

“They’re trying to keep their head above water when it comes to rising housing costs and stagnating wages,” he said of Fayetteville residents. “It's tough to then expect them to go and venture off into something.”

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In the meantime, Benavente said, some officials are keen to allow the proliferation of dollar stores for two reasons: Like any other retail development, each new store increases local tax revenue; and dollar stores are better than not having any stores that sell food and other goods in a particular area.

"We’re not very discerning,” he said. “We’re sort of taking what we can get.”

City spokesperson Devon Smith said the city's development services and zoning board are tasked with determining "the highest and best use of the land."

While zoning ordinances govern how a particular piece of land may be used, dollar stores and grocery stores are treated the same — either type of store can be developed in a variety of commercial zoning districts.

"They can't say, 'well, we like retail here, but we prefer Aldi over Dollar General,'" Smith said.

County spokesperson Brian Haney said he could not provide any information on the subject.

Lindsey Haynes-Maslow, a professor at North Carolina State University with a doctorate degree in health policy and management, said some researchers see dollar stores as a saving grace for communities that might not otherwise have grocery stores.

“They build in locations that are rural or low-income, and they might offer more affordable or convenient food options," she said.

Sharon Hawley, 56, a Fayetteville native who moved to Sampson County with her husband 13 years ago, said the Godwin DG Market about a mile from her home is “a godsend.” She shops at the store two to three times a week.

Since it opened, she said, she doesn’t have to wait for her weekend trip to grocery stores that are a 15-to-20-minute drive away to shop for things like pool floats, beach towels, ice cream and produce.

Hawley said she and her family live on 96 acres of land that have been passed down for generations, and while she’s glad to have a shop nearby to buy food and other necessities, she wouldn’t want a grocery store to move in.

“We’re on farmland,” Hawley said. “We want to keep it that way.”

Cumberland County has more dollar stores than similar counties

With 30 dollar stores — nine Family Dollar stores, eight Dollar Tree stores and 13 Dollar General stores — Cumberland County has more dollar stores than other N.C. counties that are similar in size and population.

Durham County has a 32% higher median income than Cumberland County, but the two counties have a similar racial makeup. Durham County has just nine dollar stores.

The median income in Forsyth County is 10% higher than in Cumberland County, and a higher percentage of Forsyth County’s population is white. Forsyth County has 21 dollar stores.

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Other N.C. communities take a stand against dollar stores

Some North Carolina counties and municipalities have taken action to stop dollar store developers’ requests to rezone land.

The zoning board in Davidson County denied a request after the county’s fire commissioner reported more than 200 fire code violations at dollar stores in the past several years, the Thomasville Times reported in September.

The Sheltontown zoning board denied a rezoning request by a major dollar store developer after a petition against the rezoning got more than 1,000 signatures. Resident concerns focused on the impact on traffic, crime, property values and harm to an existing general store, The Mount Airy News reported last summer.

Orange County commissioners blocked a dollar store developer’s request to rezone a parcel of land from agricultural to retail, WRAL news reported in April.

Other communities throughout the country have enacted moratoriums on dollar stores or specified that the outlets must be built a certain distance apart, according to the Institute for Local Reliance’s February report.

Food, dining and business reporter Taylor Shook can be reached at tshook@gannett.com, on Twitter, or Facebook. Want weekly food news delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the Fayetteville Foodies newsletter. 

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville, NC dollar stores could endanger grocery store access