No more Dollar Generals for now

City council passes six-month moratorium on small box stores

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Kokomo and Howard County have a food desert problem. There are areas of the city and county where residents have little to no nearby access to healthy, affordable food. This leaves people with limited transportation few options for good nutrition.

Some have attributed part of the problem to the proliferation of “small box” or dollar stores; businesses like Dollar General or Dollar Tree that carry processed foods and may have an impact of the survival of traditional grocery stores.

One of Kokomo’s Dollar General stores, at 2130 W. Sycamore St., offers fresh produce. (Photo/Tony Stewart)

Kokomo has six Dollar General stores, and they also are present in Russiaville, Greentown, Galveston, Sharpsville, Burlington, and Tipton. Given the high number of these “small box” stores, the Kokomo Plan Commission forwarded legislation temporarily banning the development of any more of these stores until a clear policy can be established concerning future dollar store development.

On June 12, the Kokomo Common Council passed a six-month moratorium on small box store development. The move is similar to a moratorium placed by the council on storage facilities last year so that new policies could be crafted concerning their development.

Councilman Matt Grecu represented two ordinances to the council. One established a definition of small box stores – a retail store of less than 16,000 square feet offering variety and convenience shopping goods below retail market value. The second put a stop to any further development of them.

“We want to give somebody a little bit of time here to develop the language we want to use to have an ordinance for the future,” said Grecu. “It’s so that we don't have more of them popping up in the meantime, until we get this better defined, and how we want these things to be built in the future and what type of amenities we want those businesses to offer the community.”

“This goes back to a piece of this whole food desert study that's been done and the prevalence of these small box stores and convenience stores that are offering not really great options, food-wise, but are so prevalent.”

The moratorium does not apply to drugstores, convenience stores, or flea markets, and it will not stop the development of any small box stores that already have started the process.

Food deserts are places where people do not have easy and affordable access to fresh foods. At least one Dollar General in Kokomo is addressing the situation. (Photo/Tony Stewart)

Kokomo Plan Commission Director Greg Sheline offered a second reason for the moratorium: the dollar stores are not being designed to allow safe access to products.

“The city code enforcement department and the fire department have had problems in some of these smaller box stores because a lot of them do not have space available to put their goods away until they're put on the shelves,” said Sheline. “If you've ever been to any of these dollar stores, when the truck comes in, you can't get up and down the aisles because they put (the shipment) in the aisles. For someone in a wheelchair, there's no way they can get through.

Grecu echoed this concern, detailing a situation in the past couple years where shoppers in the back of a Dollar General in Kokomo were trapped because a shipment had been dropped in the store’s aisles, leaving the shoppers no exit.

Eight of the nine council members voted for the ordinances, putting them into effect. One detractor, councilman Tony Stewart, opposed the moratorium, arguing that dollar stores might become the best solution to the community’s food desert problem.

“The dollar stores are changing their game in some areas,” said Stewart.

This Dollar General’s effort to provide healthy, affordable food options prompted Councilman Tony Stewart to oppose the moratorium on small box stores. (Photo/Tony Stewart)

Stewart said that he had received calls from constituents who told them the Dollar General at 2130 W. Sycamore St. offered a fresh produce section.

“I'd never seen a dollar store like that,” said Stewart. “Everybody should go out there and see it. As an industry, as a company, they should meet the demand by changing what they're selling. We shouldn’t just legislate it. I think it's easier to put smaller stores in that capacity than to build a grocery store.”

The ordinances passed, 8-1. The plan commission now has the task of developing rules for the development of small box stores. The moratorium ends in six months or upon adoption of a new ordinance, whichever comes first.