Another Family Dollar is set to close its doors for good – leaving locals at a loss when it comes to good deals.
The store on North Main Street in Dayton, Ohio, will close later this month, owners announced – months after the dollar store chain’s parent company aired plans to close ‘multiple’ locations across the state.
The series of closures announced this past April already saw one Dayton Family Dollar forever closed.
Now, another store in the city of 135,000 is following suit, mere months after its interior was remodeled and parking lot fully repaved.
The move has left some ‘scratching’ their heads, with one local leader asking, ‘Why remodel if you’re going to close?’
‘There’s people that come from over the bridge, River Commons, Five Oaks neighborhood, up Main Street,’ Victoria McNeal told WHIO-TV 7 Thursday, as ‘store closing’ signs loomed large in windows of the business on 1130 North Main Street.
‘It’s a heavily shopped store.’
Citing the work done right around the time chain announced the 35 other Ohio closures, the rep Riverdale Neighborhood Association admitted ‘So we were scratching our heads.’
The store, she added, is about a mile north of downtown, and had been a favorite of all walks of life.
She added how its closure, slated for November 23, would thus hurt everyone in the area – leaving them with even less options than before.
That said, there is a silver lining when it comes to the closure, as owners now use the sad occasion to unload their current store stock.
The location is currently selling items at a 20 percent discount as a result – a markdown they say will last the entire week.
But that’s not all.
When that’s said and done, the store is then expected to offer discounts to the tune of 30 percent, store-runners said – adding how that sale that will also last a week.
Then, another week of sales will ensue – this one cutting costs for customers even further during the Dayton Family Dollar’s final week of operation.
After that, the company will call it quits in the Ohio city – seemingly for good.
As for a reason, one was not immediately given, but several residents who spoke to WHIO-TV 7 in the wake of the announcement blamed shoplifting.
McNeal, however, believes this is not the case, instead alleging the state of the chain’s parent company, former competitor Dollar Tree, is to blame.
‘People probably do steal but that can’t be the whole reason why you’re closing,’ McNeal said.
‘I think it’s personnel maintenance and maybe the pay too.’
Such was the case in the spring when the announced plans to close 1,000 stores nationwide – all to offset some $1.7billion in losses seen over just three months.
The net loss put a cap on a disastrous several years seen since the company’s acquisition by Dollar Tree in 2015 – a deal itself valued at $8.5billion.
To stem the bleeding, the Virginia based outfit aired its plans to close about 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of 2024, followed by 370 more Family Dollar closures over the next few years.
A total of 30 Dollar Trees across the country will also be closed, as executives making the moves continue to blame the cost-of-living crisis and inflation.
Meanwhile, the recent closure in Dayton will have residents driving an extra 10 minutes to the next-nearest store once the sales are through – with 25 stores still in Montgomery County.
A total of roughly 8,000 remain elsewhere, after the recent closures already affected hundreds of minimum wage workers.
Family Dollar has yet to explain the latest closure, which comes days after the sudden resignation of Dollar Tree CEO and Chairman Rick Dreiling.
In a statement, he said it was due to personal health issues – after leading the company for nearly two years.
Moreover, Family Dollar was also fined nearly $50 million earlier this year, after admitting to holding and selling consumer products from a rodent-infested warehouse in Arkansas in February.
The company had been charged with ‘one misdemeanor count of causing FDA-regulated products to become adulterated while being held under insanitary conditions’, according to the Department of Justice.
Under a plea agreement, Family Dollar agreed to pay $41.675 million – the largest-ever monetary criminal penalty in a food safety case.