Dollar General is in every Michigan county

A Dollar General store on M-115 in Copemish, Michigan. The chain dollar store has expanded rapidly in recent years, but one Michigan county has managed to keep them out. (Photo by Rose White | MLive)

A yellow sign with block letters "DOLLAR GENERAL" towers over M-115 in Northern Michigan.

The exact same sign is stuck to the wall of a building in Grand Rapids. Another couple dozen dot metro Detroit. And there's even one in Michigan's smallest county, Keweenaw, home to roughly 2,000 people.

Dollar Generals are everywhere – except in one Michigan county.

Leelanau County communities have managed to keep out Dollar General even as the most prolific retailer in the United States has rapidly expanded with more than 19,000 locations across the country.

"It wasn't really the type of business that we wanted in the village because it would impact some of the other existing businesses fairly hard," said Paul Skinner, chair of Chamber of Commerce in Empire, a quaint coastal downtown that is a pitstop to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

It and similarly charming Maple City, about 12 miles east, thwarted Dollar General's efforts to establish stores on their small-town streets, and their resistance represents a growing national movement.

"The number of communities that are defeating specific dollar store proposals or are enacting ordinances that control dollar store development is shooting up rapidly," said Kennedy Smith, a senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a research and advocacy organization.

Smith co-authored a report called "The Dollar Store Invasion" that details how stores like Dollar General and Dollar Tree harm rural, low-income, Black and Latino neighborhoods. The report says chain dollar stores tend to upend these local economies and force locally owned grocery stores to close.

"There's concern about the chain dollar store on grocery stores in particular, the survival of grocery stores and the ability to attract future grocery stores," Smith said.

When a Dollar General submitted plans to build in Empire, Michigan four years ago, the village council put a six-month moratorium on new developments. Dollar General ended up not building there. (Photo by Rose White | MLive)

This was the worry when Dollar General tried to move four years ago into Empire, where a gas station, an outdoor gear store, a chocolate shop and a handful of restaurants line the streets.

A grocery store shuttered a year earlier but Skinner, who also owns vintage and home goods store The Misers’ Hoard, worried about Dollar General drawing customers away from local stores like Empire Outdoors. He was concerned too about the optics of a box store in the scenic Lake Michigan community.

The Empire Village Council enacted a six-month moratorium in July 2019 to essentially halt development in a commercial district on M-22. Twenty people addressed village leaders during a special meeting with most in favor of the temporary pause.

Dollar General did not arrive, and Empire updated its master plan two months later.

"The zoning was written in such a way to discourage box stores," Skinner said.

But Skinner now questions his reluctance.

"The reality is, sitting here four or five years later, when you look the makeup of the village now in terms of who lives here and how frequently they live here, we don't have a large enough population to support a year-round grocery store," he said. "That's just the truth of the matter."

Leelanau County's population swings 126% from January to July, according to a housing study from Networks Northwest, and its housing occupancy drops from a summer peak of 69% to 9% in the winter. For the estimated 360 Empire residents, the nearest grocery store is eight miles away in Glen Arbor or a 25-mile roundtrip to Honor.

Shipwreck Café in downtown Empire, Michigan opened in 2017. (Photo by Rose White | MLive)

Weston and Hannah Nowicki, cousins who run their family-owned Shipwreck Café, believe Empire needs a place with affordable groceries close to home.

"A lot of older folks around here want to keep Empire smaller. They want to keep their quiet, peaceful little town. And a big box store like that would definitely draw a lot more people in," said Weston Nowicki, 20. "In all reality, personally, I think we need it."

But the Nowickis have firsthand experience with seasonal market swings. Hannah Nowicki, 22, said the café serves about 30 sandwiches a day during the winter compared to over 500 in the summer.

"I don't think a big grocery store could survive in the wintertime," she said. "Because if you drive down here in the middle of winter, they’re all empty. These are all weekly rentals in the summer and so there's no place for any younger generations to even live around here."

Dollar General says most of its stores serve communities with fewer than 20,000 people that struggle to attract other retailers.

"It is not unusual for us to hear from communities, especially in rural areas, asking us to bring a DG to their hometown," a statement said.

Chain dollar stores tend to target food deserts like Empire, providing a limited selection of food to city neighborhoods or rural areas, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance report. But they can also create food deserts by setting up shop next to the only grocery store in town.

Smith says it's important for tourism communities like in Leelanau County to find alternatives such as self-service grocery stores, refrigerated food lockers or grocery delivery services and steer away from chain dollar stores.

"They use the same signage, the same branding, the same merchandise, same everything in all their stores. And by doing that, they’re eroding the distinctiveness that draws visitors there to begin with," she said.

Even Dollar General doesn't view itself as a full replacement.

"While we are not a grocery store, every Dollar General store offers components of a nutritious meal including canned and frozen vegetables, canned fruits, proteins, grains, dairy, and more," Dollar General Corporation said in a statement.

The company says it offers fresh produce in more than 3,900 Dollar General stores with plans to supply it in 10,000 stores "with a meaningful number in USDA-defined food deserts."

It refuted the Institute for Local Self-Reliance report saying the group is "not a reliable source for information regarding Dollar General."

The chain has other critics.

The U.S. Department of Labor flagged Dollar General as a "severe violator" for unsafe working conditions like tall stacks of boxes, blocked aisles and thin staffing levels. Since 2017, the corporation has faced more than $16 million in fines after more than 200 inspections by federal regulators.

"We regularly review and refine our safety programs, and reinforce them through training, ongoing communication, recognition and accountability," Dollar General has said in response to safety concerns.

A parcel of land in Maple City eyed by Dollar General in 2019 is now being turned into six homes by Habitat for Humanity. (Photo by Rose White | MLive)

Opposition to Dollar General peaked in Maple City, a one-stoplight village with a gas station and a post office, in 2019.

"It was my opinion that this isn't good for anybody," said Chris Mills, 37, who led an effort to block a store.

Mills mobilized after he learned Dollar General was behind a land survey near his house. Concerned about the impact on the local economy and the environment, he dug into zoning ordinances and brought a petition signed by 100 people to a Kasson Township Board meeting. He also said a store would be a nuisance for neighbors.

"Ultimately, the way we prevented them from building it was going straight to the ordinance, going through it with a fine-tooth comb, highlighting, making photocopies and handing it straight to the planning commission," Mills said.

Dollar General withdrew its offer less than a month later, the Glen Arbor Sun reported. Habitat for Humanity is now converting the parcel into housing.

To Mills, zoning ordinances are the "unsung hero" of the story.

"All of a sudden, legally, this entire decision will hinge on that master plan that is always being amended by the planning commission. Those meetings are open, and they are just starving for public input on these things," he said.

Dollar General says it has no current plans to build in Leelanau County.

It is expanding its empire elsewhere.

The corporation added 3,500 locations across the country over the past four years with plans for 1,700 more. At the start of last year, Dollar General and Dollar Tree operated more than 34,000 stores – a bigger retail footprint than McDonald's, Starbucks, Target and Walmart combined.