Dollar Stores, good or bad for your community?

I like to watch Cheddar channel on Sunday when I cycle (inside, another 11 miles and I'll pass 11,000 miles). But because its focus is on youth, it's a bit thick with woke and SJW opinions and stories. Today its focus was on the scary, outrageous (hype) growth of the dollar store chains. Oh. My. They cater to low income and those with immediate shopping needs! Horror. Remember, these same greenie "save the world" types ran out investments in big box stores and chain grocery stores from inner city neighborhoods about 2 decades ago. It seems there are now more dollar stores than McDonald's. The save-the-earth  and make-all-minorities-victims groups also don't like McDonald's.  Consumers like them so much, everyone is obese or at least not eating enough fruits and vegetables from other sources.

It seems the SJW crowd are all for "mom and pop" stores, but only if run by an actual local family, who is probably white or Asian and middle class hoping to expand to something better. I've been hearing about "mom and pop" and the "small farmer" for decades. Look, they are in business to make a living. If we drive by on our way to Walmart, or the produce is too limp and old to make a salad, let's not blame a lack of diversity and equity in the "system." If "mom and pop" owners can sell the family business because the real estate is now worth $2 million and they only clear $30,000 a year working 12 hours a day, why would the SJW deny a small business owner that opportunity to move up and out by selling to a corporation?

I love the little dollar store a few miles from my home, and the one near Lakeside. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find small packages in large supermarkets? I prefer to pay more per ounce if I can lift the container! I love paying 2/$1.00 for greeting cards, or 5 shower caps for $1, or 6 packages of peanuts for $1. The store is clean, the staff pleasant, and they seem to meet the needs of the people now taking up residence in those awful apartment complexes that look like prison compounds. 

The Cheddar program reported that dollar stores target poor and minority neighborhoods--you know, so they can walk to the store, or find several items they can afford. What the SJW are really mad about is that market forces and capitalism are driving the growth of small scale, cheap to build money making stores. There are many suburbanites who shop there too, and they fill a need the big box stores don't. And they stayed open during the pandemic.

The final point in the program was that they attract crime (I suppose because of the minority neighborhoods?). Recently in Columbus, we've had a spate of shootings and robberies at suburban shopping centers and gas stations. Criminals aren't stupid, and they don't become bad people because of where investors put their businesses whether it's a kosher grocery in Boulder or a massage parlor in Atlanta.

But as I noted, Cheddar's focus, fast paced and trendy, is on the young--they have a specific market just as dollar stores do. But for them, I guess it's OK. Cheddar was founded by Jon Steinberg, President and Chief Operating Officer of BuzzFeed from 2010 to 2014. Its investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Raine Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Liberty Global, Comcast Ventures, AT&T, Amazon, Antenna Group, Ribbit Capital, The New York Stock Exchange, Altice USA, 7 Global Capital, and Denstu Ventures.

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