Market will control fate of small stores

The proposed ordinance regarding limits on small box stores was a tough one to decide, but we think the Pine Bluff City Council got it right.

The council was considering putting restrictions on these types of stores, such as Dollar General, Family Dollar and the like, because too many of them can dissuade a grocery store from locating in an area, so they say.

The worst way of looking at the stores came from sponsor Latisha Brunson, the council member who has been trying to get a supermarket to locate a store at or near the location of the Super 1 Foods that went out of business on East Harding Avenue awhile back. She said the little stores “target low-income communities and those of color.”

Certainly, other cities have taken hard stances on these types of stores. Cleveland and Chicago, for instance, both took action against them, with one of the provisions being to put at least two miles between the locations. The problem, it has been said, is that the stores are not taken care of, they become eyesores and turn into places where people loiter.

We’ve not heard that type of argument about the ones in existence now in Pine Bluff so it seems that to limit the small box stores would be more for giving something of a competitive edge to a bigger store — one that sells a complete line of groceries. For now, without a replacement for the Super 1 store, that area of town is in a food desert.

That is all quite reasonable, but the flip side is to have the council put its thumb on the scale for a certain entity, and that is an uncomfortable precedent. As in, the city likes your business but not yours.

You might point out that the state puts limits on liquor stores. Yes, but given the history of alcohol sales in the country, that seems understandable. And the changes in the laws surrounding alcohol sales — think buying wine in the grocery store now — have actually hurt liquor stores instead of protecting them.

In the end, leaving the Pine Bluff market free to operate, as it has, won the day with the council. The idea is that these things take care of themselves through capitalism. If there’s too many of something — or those somethings aren’t being taken care of — they tend to disappear. And to drive that point home, we refer you to the recent story that said Family Dollar and Dollar Tree were closing 1,000 stores.

That’s what happens when the business landscape is allowed to operate, and it’s something that any proposed grocery store chain should be adept at handling if it wants to locate in Pine Bluff. In short, competition is good.