MORGAN, Minnesota — Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Dollar General - it's hard not to spot one of these stores lately. Turns out, they were the big winners during the pandemic.
Dollar Tree, which operates both Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, has 16,340 stores across 48 states in the U.S. They continue to grow.
In their fiscal year 2021 report, they said they planned to open 590 new stores in the fiscal year 2022.
Dollar General, which operates more than 18,800 stores in 47 states, reported a net income of 2.4 billion dollars in fiscal year 2021, which was a 10 percent drop compared to fiscal year 2020, during the peak of the pandemic.
And it was in late 2020, when Dollar General decided it wanted to open one of its stores just outside of Morgan, Minnesota, a town with a population under 900.
"I'd never been in a general dollar store before," Morgan mayor Jerry Huiras said. He said he went to check one out in nearby Fairfax, Minnesota.
"I looked at it and I really didn't think Morgan needed something like that," he said. He said the grocery section was mainly canned goods, not from the United States. Compared to their family-owned store that's been operating in Morgan for about 100 years, Huiras found the Dollar General lackluster.
"They have a heck of a variety of like potato chips and stuff like that; a lot of sodas," he said.
Plus, Dollar General would be in direct competition with the family-owned store.
Which, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, is a tactic dollar store conglomerates use.
So with a petition of more than 200 names, the city of Morgan and Redwood County commissioners voted down Dollar General's permit to build.
"It got denied 100 percent by every county commissioner that was on the board-- so that was the end of it," Huiras said.
Dollar General released this statement Tuesday afternoon:
“With approximately 75 percent of Americans within five miles of one of our 19,000+ stores, thousands of customers rely on Dollar General for convenient access to affordable everyday household essentials. In a wide variety of communities across the country, our neighborhood general stores operate alongside local grocers and business owners to collectively serve customers’ needs. Additionally, approximately 75% of our stores serve communities of 20,000 or fewer residents, often in locations that other retailers have chosen not to serve.”