KOKOMO -- Kokomo officials want to put new regulations on discount stores coming to the city.
According to the websites of the three main discount stores in the area there are seven Dollar Generals, three Family Dollar’s and two Dollar Trees in Kokomo alone.
Lacey and Ryan Troyer live in Kokomo. They say they shop at discount stores regularly, mainly for some household staples at a cheap price.
"This is where I shop most of the time,” Lacey Troyer said. "We come a lot for like dog food, personal items and little stuff. Just stuff like that just to be able to get by."
They both admit finding affordable healthy food can be hard to come by in discount stores.
"I've seen a little bit in Dollar General but it's very select items,” Lacey said. “I've never really seen any like fresh fruits, but they do have the refrigerator section.”
That lack of options for fresh food is prompting the city to act. The ordinance likely to pass through the city council would require all new discount stores to dedicate 15 percent of their retail space to fresh foods. The goal is to decrease food insecurity across Kokomo.
"As much as it seems that there is food insecurity our research or a lot of our investigative work showed that it is was just as much accessibility to options versus an insecurity or absents itself,” Kokomo Mayor Tyler Moore said. "
The ordinance would also require a few other things. New stores would have to be built about a mile of distance between existing stores. Plus, new stores would have to dedicate 15 percent of gross floor area for storage of inventory not currently on display. Along with that, the ordinance also creates certain architecture for new stores too. This policy is new to Kokomo, but other cities have been fighting the development of discount stores for years.
"There are now 36,000 chain dollar stores in the country,” Kennedy Smith a Senior Researcher for the Institute for Local Self Reliance said.
Smith has been studying the growth of dollar stores across the country since 2017. A study she did with the Institute for Local Self Reliance shows that over 50 cities across the country have created policies much like the one Kokomo is trying to create. She says the growth of these stores have caused other businesses to close. The graphic below shows just how much revenue has made over the years. That same study mentioned earlier says Dollar General is nine times larger than it was 15 years ago. Smith says that’s how some of these discount stores make their revenue. She says they expand to increase their profits.
"They are choking other businesses out of the marketplace, especially food stores,” Smith said. “But other kinds of businesses too. School supply stores, gift stores greeting stores, and home furnishing stores are all feeling the pinch."
Mayor Moore hopes this new policy will encourage smaller grocery stores to come to the city, and create change among current discount stores.
“If a lot of the existing small box discount stores see that there is this initiative, we hope that they will change their model and start offering more healthier items,” Moore said. “I would assume that their fear would be ok we encourage large grocers or other traditional grocers in those areas that could compete and possibly put them out of business.”
As for if this policy will help or not remains to be seen. Smith says these types of policy changes have only been around for about 5 years.
“It certainly is a good start that they are requiring a certain amount of space be devoted to fresh food,” Smith said. “It remains to be seen if the presence of the store is going to hurt existing grocery stores and if it does it’s not going to be good for the community.”
The city of Kokomo instituted a moratorium on the development of new discount stores earlier this year. They did so to figure out how to move forward with them. The new guidelines for discount stores would only apply to new stores being built in Kokomo. The Kokomo city council is set to vote on a final passage of the ordinance on October 30th.
