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Dollar Tree announced Wednesday that it will close nearly 1,000 of its Family Dollar stores after the stores experienced a significant underperformance in 2023, according to a news release from the company.
Dollar Tree plans to close about 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of this year and 370 Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores over the next several years.
What this means for Rhode Island stores remains unclear, as Dollar Tree has not yet announced which stores will close.
Counting three large chains — Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar — plus the smaller One Dollar Zone, which has stores in six states from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, including one in Rhode Island, the Ocean State has 100 dollar stores, according to store location information on the chains’ websites.
That 100 includes three pairs of Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores that share an address.
During the fourth quarter of 2023, Dollar Tree underwent a review of its stores performance to identify locations to close, relocate or re-banner, the company said.
“As a result of this review, we plan on closing approximately 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of fiscal 2024. Additionally, approximately 370 Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores will close over the next several years at the end of each store’s current lease term,” the company said in the press release.
The recent rapid growth of dollar stores was, to a certain extent, the result of market forces in place before the pandemic that were amplified by the fundamental shift in the economy brought about by COVID-19.
“They’re the fastest growing store format coming out of the pandemic,” Rae Coloura, a marketing professor at Providence College, told The Providence Journal in 2023.
“Stores like Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, they all had these pretty aggressive growth strategies, whereas Targets and Walmarts weren’t growing anymore – they might been reformatting and renovating stores, but they hadn’t really announced any major growth,” said Coloura.
Shares of Dollar Tree tumbled more than 14% Wednesday.
For the three months ended Feb. 3, Dollar Tree lost $1.71 billion, or $7.85 per share. A year earlier the Chesapeake, Virginia, company earned $452.2 million, or $2.04 per share.
Dollar Tree, a Fortune 200 Company, operated 16,774 stores across 48 states and five Canadian provinces as of Feb. 3. Stores operate under the brands of Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree Canada.
Dollar Tree has not revealed when the store closures are set to begin or what states will be affected by this decision.
With reports from USATODAY and The Associated Press.
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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