Sarah Chapin was a student at Albany College of Pharmacy when Rite Aid tried moving into her hometown of Henniker in the late 1990s. She knew what was going on back home, but that was 140 miles away, and Chapin was focused on finishing her studies.
Now, Chapin operates Henniker Pharmacy on the corner of Western Avenue and Route 114 in the heart of downtown. She’s been in charge for eight years – Chapin is the fifth owner of the more than 120-year-old store – and now finds her business, and others in town, in the beginning phases of a new chain store saga as Dollar General sets its sights on a location up the street and across Route 202.
Behind the counter at Henniker Pharmacy, patrons and friends are invited to sign a petition pledging they will not shop at Dollar General if it opens. It matches the sign stuck in the ground outside the store, exclaiming disapproval for the variety store. So far, she has filled a few pages of the petition and a handful of other local businesses are collecting signatures as well.
“If people want to go (to Dollar General) and buy Tums from China, they can,” Chapin said, stepping out from behind the pharmacy counter Wednesday afternoon.
But Chapin is confident even if the chain variety store does open, her customers will stick around.
“I have very loyal customers,” she said. “I was born in this town, been here 49 years. This is not what Henniker is about.”
Asking residents, business owners and their customers what they think of Dollar General opening in Henniker, many say it doesn’t “fit” with the town’s character or community.
But Dollar General thinks otherwise.
“When choosing store locations, meeting customers’ needs is Dollar General’s top priority,” Nolan Miles, a communications coordinator in the company’s Goodlettsville, Tenn., headquarters, wrote in an email.
Miles continues, “The company looks for places where we can offer customers an easy and convenient shopping experience. . . . We also take demographic trends, competitive factors, traffic patterns and community concerns into consideration. (These) towns in New Hampshire are great locations for Dollar General.”
The locations he refers to are three the Monitor inquired about: a store in Hillsboro that opened its doors in 2012, another in Center Barnstead that is under construction and expected to open at summer’s end, and the Henniker location.
But the lot on Route 114 (Bradford Road) that the store is eyeing, right across the street from Henniker Farm & Country Store and the Harvester Market, is only being inspected as a possible location. Miles expects a decision won’t be made for at least another year.
“We’re interested in adding a new location to Merrimack County, but have not committed to doing so yet,” he wrote.
At Henniker Farm & Country Store, the petition, with about 100 signatures and notes made under a “comments” section, shows similiar sentiments repeated: “not attractive, not necessary,” or “land could be better used.”
One petitioner, at the bottom of this particular page, wrote an old phrase that longtime residents probably remember: “Rite Aid/Wrong Town.”
A small community where news can often be overshadowed by lawmakers grabbing headlines in Concord a few exits down Interstate 89, Henniker gained national attention in the late 1990s when the town denied Rite Aid the opportunity to build a new location.
Residents organized under the slogan “Rite Aid/Wrong Town,” and plastered the motto across Henniker on yard signs and bumper stickers. The town was featured on a 30-minute segment of Nightline in 1997, and a few months later Rite Aid sued Henniker after the planning board denied the company’s site plan application on the grounds it was too large for the lot. A year later, in 1998, a superior court judge sided with the town, reasoning the board “is not required to accept a plan solely because it can be shoehorned onto a lot.”
Rite Aid was out, and many residents and business owners today hope the same will be said for Dollar General.
As one longtime Henniker resident, Dennis Hamel, put it: “Henniker is the most anti-business town on Earth.”
Chapin, the owner of Henniker Pharmacy, says if Dollar General is considering the town’s demographics in its decisions, then why come here?
“The demographics don’t make sense,” she said. “I’m not sure where they will get this draw.”
Whether Dollar General intentionally targets low-income communities, Miles said the company “takes in all kinds of different things” when considering a new location, including income and whether “it is worth it for customers to have Dollar General in their area.”
Studies show the majority of dollar-store shoppers come from low-income households, which is likely why they would shop for the absolute lowest prices on everyday household items.
A survey done by Kantar Retail, and cited by Business Insider in 2014, found Dollar General shoppers have average household incomes of $45,640 – about $8,000 less than the average Walmart customer. The study also concluded that among Family Dollar shoppers, “four in 10 have a household income of less than $25,000, which is slightly higher than the poverty level for a family of four.”
At face value, these averages compared with Henniker’s median household income of $65,867, according to the state Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau, show Henniker’s economy to be above the average for a community of Dollar General shoppers.
But some believe today’s numbers are not what the store is looking at.
At the April 13 planning board meeting, Henniker Selectman Ben Fortner said the chain is looking a few years into the future and predicting where the town’s economy will be then.
“These buildings come into areas of economic decline,” Fortner said. “That’s an indicator. I’m concerned they’ve identified us as an economically depressed area.”
The signs against Dollar General haven’t covered the town. So far only 12 have been made.
So who’s behind this?
That would be one of the abutters to the proposed Dollar General site, Chris Bremer, whose home is off the northwest corner of the lot. Perhaps one of the most vocal residents at the April 13 planning board meeting, Bremer has taken the lead in stirring up a grassroots effort in the tradition of the Rite Aid saga nearly 20 years ago.
Bremer’s story is not uncommon: He came to Henniker from Chicago some 26 years ago to attend New England College and never left. Now 40, Bremer won’t call himself a native of Henniker, but does consider himself “a local.” He stayed in Henniker for its peace and tranquility, and now finds himself at the forefront of a fight to keep Dollar General from building on a lot off his backyard.
“I live in Henniker for a reason: because we don’t have a Dollar General,” Bremer said earlier in April. “I’ll even picket in front of the store.”
He already has the signs made up, and he said yellow T-shirts to match the signs will soon be coming off the press. He hopes to have them in time for the next planning board meeting May 11, where the board will hold its rescheduled work session on feedback for Dollar General.
A question Bremer frequently returns to is why Dollar General wants to open a store in Henniker when there is a location already open 10 minutes down Route 202 in Hillsboro? It’s a question that others repeatedly raised at the April 13 meeting, and in conversations since. Not to mention, Bremer adds, there’s also a Family Dollar in Hillsboro.
Proximity is taken into account, Miles said, as the company typically serves customers “within a three to five mile radius, or 10 minute drive.”
There’s no question Dollar General is expanding. It has more than 12,000 stores across 43 states and claims to be “America’s largest small-box discount retailer by sales.”
In 2016, Dollar General is planning to open 900 stores, Miles said.
Currently, there are 17 open stores in New Hampshire. As for the rest of northern New England, Vermont has 30, Massachusetts has 22 and Maine has 14. Nearby New York state has 337.
“We’re looking for places where there is an opportunity to touch base,” he said. “Each state can be different.”
Mary Walsh, a 17-year Henniker resident, isn’t convinced that opportunity is in Henniker.
“The things they sell, we already have here,” she said, placing her hand on the check-out counter in the Henniker Farm & Country Store on Wednesday. “I realize we need to increase the tax base, but this doesn’t fit with Henniker’s character.”
Walsh did admit that the store could be an option for elderly residents on a fixed income, but she would rather see local businesses get the support.
Shopping in a small town isn’t like shopping in the city, said Walsh’s husband, Jim. Shopping in Henniker, he said, you get stopped and caught up in conversation with a friend or employee.
“What takes someone in the city five minutes to grab takes them 45 minutes in Henniker,” he said. “That intensity of community drives people to this, or it drives them away. I think people really value that.”
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3309, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)