Despite complaints about the proliferation of small-box discount stores in Deltona, city leaders have delayed taking steps to ban new ones or define how many are too many.
“If you put a lot of dollar stores in an area, it becomes economically depressed,” Commissioner Dana McCool said Nov. 27, as she and her colleagues debated a proposed moratorium on new low-price businesses.
A resolution calling for a 120-day freeze on the issuance of business licenses for new dollar stores or processing applications for any now in the planning stage awaited action by the City Commission Nov. 27.
“This particular resolution just affords the city a limited time in which to bring back to the commission an ordinance to try and control this or limit it in some manner. It does not change anything permanently,” Interim Public Works Director Phyllis Wallace told the commission. “That would be at the discretion of the commission in the event it’s something you want us to pursue.”
After discussing a possible timeout for approving the opening of additional dollar stores, the commission opted instead to convene a workshop on the subject and the bigger context of Deltona’s land-development code sometime after the new year. The date and time for a continuation of the discussion have not been determined.
This is not the first time the low-price stores have come under scrutiny in Deltona. In 2020, the City Commission debated restricting or even halting the development of new dollar stores — generally considered to be Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar — but no action was taken. At that time, and now, critics say the smallbox retailers’ increasing numbers and presence may create a “lack of healthy food choices” and “perpetuation of potential ‘food desert’ effect within the city,” according to a summary of the agenda item.
“Deltona currently has 14 small-box businesses,” Wallace said.
Mayor Santiago Avila Jr. said the stores “have a long history of keeping the median household income down.”
“All I’m asking is, we do what our residents are asking,” he added. “Let’s sit down and talk about how close they need to be to each other.”
Commissioner Maritza Avila-Vazquez said she would favor distance requirements, but she added she would not want to “discriminate against a class of stores.”
Deltona may wish to consider setting distances between such stores, City Attorney Marsha SegalGeorge advised.
“We started it once before and then stopped it. So, there’s a lot more information out there,” she told the City Commission. “There’s a lot of cities in Florida that have worked on it. There are cities in Georgia that have worked on it, and they’ve worked on it from two different angles. One is limiting distances between these kinds of stores. What’s your goal? Is your goal trying to get more diversity in food so you’re not getting a food desert that they talk about? So what is the goal? What are you trying to do? And then what do you do about it? Some have put distance requirements and said you can only have so many, and I have tons of information on different distance opportunities out there.”
Not everyone on the dais opposes the small-box stores.
“I have a personal financial interest in the availability and continued success of such dollar stores. I shop there to save money,” Commissioner Tom Burbank said.
While he supports a stronger regulation of small-box discount stores, Commissioner Jody Lee Storozuk suggested Deltona limit other retail businesses spreading inside the city.
“We should add storage units and auto-parts stores to it,” he said.
As the debate — to be continued — drew to a close, Mayor Avila wondered whether more controversial businesses may spring up in Deltona.
“If somebody wants to open an adult store, like the one on Saxon Boulevard, are they allowed to?” he asked.
Such topics may be covered in the future workshop on dollar stores and the city’s development regulations.
The commission voted 6-1 to set such a workshop, or informal discussion meeting, at a later date. Vice Mayor Anita Bradford, who was not present in the meeting chambers but joined via a telephone connection, dissented.
On a related note, the commission subsequently chose Storozuk to succeed Bradford as Deltona’s vice mayor for the coming year. The vice mayor presides over City Commission meetings in the absence of the elected mayor and/or represents Deltona at other events if the mayor cannot attend.
