Family Dollar stores closing in Wilmington, NC

News that two Family Dollar stores are closing in Wilmington has sent customers flocking to those locations in search of big savings.

On a recent Monday afternoon, for instance, customers lined up outside the store at 4840 Carolina Beach Road for the 50% off sale. One customer said the store was allowing five people in at a time. The store at 1313 Greenfield St. is also closing.

The company has not announced an official closing date. Family Dollar’s parent company, Dollar Tree, previously announced it would close 1,000 of its stores after a fourth quarter loss.

Wilmington currently has seven Family Dollar locations, and numerous Dollar Tree stores across New Hanover County.

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Dollar Tree, along with Dollar General, dominates the dollar store market as more than half of the US population lives within a five-minute drive of a Dollar General.

“Dollar stores target communities of color, where grocery store chains underinvest,” according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Predominantly white communities have two to four times more large grocery stores than do communities of color.”

When it comes to Wilmington’s downtown area, there’s a noticeable shortage of grocery stores. The closest chain store, Food Lion, is located at 1929 Oleander Drive. Other than local food banks and local markets, dollar stores also provide access to food. But the options are limited and most are lacking in nutrition.

The city of Wilmington and New Hanover County have partnered with the Northside Food Co-op to provide a full-service grocery store at 10th and Post streets in Wilmington.

The mission of the Northside Food Co-op is to increase access to nutritious, affordable food as well as fostering community resiliency and interrupting the cycle of multigenerational poverty within the Northside Wilmington, a neighborhood that has been historically disenfranchised and is also a USDA-defined food desert.

The loss of the Family Dollar stores could make way for larger grocery stores as dollar stores saturate communities’ grocery markets and full-service food stores are deterred from opening, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The loss may make it harder for those without transportation to gain access to groceries depending on where they live in the area. Some may have to walk, ride or even drive further to get to the next store location.