The town of Washington’s residents voted to enact a six-month moratorium on the development of any new major non-residential projects, including a recently-proposed Dollar General, Wednesday night.
More than 100 residents packed the local elementary school’s gymnasium to voice support for the measure, which defines “major non-residential development projects” as those that build or add 4,000 square feet of non-residential floor area, have the potential to generate more than 50 vehicle trips per peak hour or more than 400 trips per day, or other qualifications. Only two residents voted against the measure.
Rallying against new dollar stores is not unique to Washington.
In December 2023, Lincolnville unanimously passed a moratorium on “major non-residential development projects” to block a proposed unspecified retail store that had the same parent company as Dollar General. In 2016, the town of Thomaston blocked a Dollar General from being built on the former state prison property.
Kennedy Smith, a senior researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said since she joined the institute in 2020, 102 communities across the country have successfully blocked dollar stores from being built.
In Washington, the engineering firm Gorrill Palmer sent a proposal in October to the town planning board to build a Dollar General at the southeast corner of Route 17 and Route 206. At the town’s Jan. 15 planning board meeting, more than 100 residents from the town of 1,500 showed up to express their disapproval, according to the Midcoast Villager.
Kathleen Gross, a resident of Washington and a member of the group of citizens opposed to the dollar store called Citizens of Washington, said the residents aren’t against development in general — they’re against Dollar General.
Gross said the dollar store would take away from the character of the community, create more traffic on a road that already has many crashes, wouldn’t provide enough healthy food and would drive away the customer base of the local general store.
“Their expansion plan is formidable,” Gross said, referring to Dollar General Corporation.
Two speakers, including Gross, spoke in favor of the moratorium at Wednesday’s meeting. Two others asked questions, and the chair of the town’s budget committee, Don Grinnell, spoke against the measure. Grinnell worried about potential legal fees the town could rack up if Dollar General decided to appeal the moratorium in court.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Dollar General will appeal this, and the appeal will be at our expense,” Grinnell said.
But another resident who spoke in favor of the measure, Jeffrey Knox, said the social cost of letting Dollar General into the community would be higher than the monetary cost of attorney fees.
“Wherever they land, they come in, they give poor quality products and poor quality jobs, low paying jobs, low wages,” Knox said. “There is legal precedent for these moratoriums just like ours. … We are not in any jeopardy.”
The town will consider an ordinance or update to its comprehensive plan during the period of the moratorium.
Dollar General Corporation did not respond to a request for comment.
