Arkansas Online

Dollar deals

Your government at work

MILTON Friedman once said not to judge government policies by their intentions, but by their results. He knew something about economics. He had a gold medal of note, from an organization named after Alfred Nobel.

The members of Little Rock’s Board of Directors doubtless had noble intentions when they passed a resolution to ban new dollar stores in certain sections of the city. Unfortunately the path of good intentions leads to you-know-where.

According to the paper, the “introductory text of the resolution describes the lack of access to fresh, healthy food as

‘a chronic and growing problem’ in Little Rock. The proliferation of the discount stores exacerbates the problem, the measure states, tying a lack of fresh food to ‘significant chronic health issues,’ such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension.”

So, obviously, all that’s the fault of Dollar General.

Or maybe Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and all the other discount stores that have sprung up in the free market.

According to the resolution, the city will impose a nine-month moratorium on zoning requests for retail stores—if they have an area of less than 12,000 square feet and sell mostly stuff under 10 bucks, according to Joseph Flaherty of the news pages.

Kathy Webb, a city director, sponsored the idea. She suggested these stores contribute to “food deserts”— those places where healthy food isn’t readily available. She is the executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. So we have to assume her good intentions. (Anybody keeping up with her career in public service would assume as much, too.)

But the free market is one difficult tide to reroute with a city resolution.

As much as eating your vegetables is good for you, a note from city directors isn’t going to get many people to eat better. Neither is cutting off a dollar store from this ZIP code or the other. Can’t you buy a bag of potato chips at a gas station?

This attempt by Little Rock’s governing board to restrict free enterprise and competition, especially, it seems, in low-income neighborhoods, isn’t going to have much of an effect on obesity. Or we assume. Because we haven’t seen a study, ever, showing any research, from anywhere, that shows moratoriums on dollar stores gets people to eat more fruit and green stuff. We’d certainly like to see such research, if it exists.

The resolution is meant to be a temporary pause, if we read right. So the government can find the research to back up the pause. Isn’t that backward? Shouldn’t there be a reason—first—to restrict these businesses before the government steps in to stop everything?

Also, who says that if a dollar store doesn’t go up on this or that street, a Whole Foods will? It would seem that the folks who’d like to buy some bread and milk at a dollar store—and maybe a package of hot dogs and a candy bar— will just go to the next neighborhood to do so.

Eating your veggies has been a good idea since Mama said to do so. But once people are old enough to drive and buy their own food, they get to make their own choices. Even if those choices aren’t ideal. And with delivery apps on every phone these days, taking away the option of buying junk food at a dollar store isn’t going to keep people from ordering their favorite empty calories on their phones.

Besides, even if large grocery stores did fill any void in these food deserts (and that’s highly doubtful), simply offering fresh fruits and vegetables isn’t going to change somebody’s eating habits. As much as we think it ought to. For proof, just look around.

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2022-01-20T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-20T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.arkansasonline.com/article/282454237364720

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