A Louisiana Court Ruling Remains a Promising Option for Rejecting Dollar Store Development

Updated: February 5, 2025

A little-noticed court ruling in November 2023 recognized that towns and cities have broad authority to reject dollar store development — if they believe it is not in the best interest of the health, safety, and welfare of its residents.

In 2023, a Louisiana court decision opened the door for more communities to reject dollar store development by using their local authority to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the community. In 2024, an appeals court overturned the decision — but its ruling focused mostly on technicalities, not substance, and the 2023 decision remains a promising option for civic leaders concerned about the many problems chain dollar stores create.

Chains like Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar are targeting communities all over the US, expanding at an unprecedented pace. The number of chain dollar stores has soared over the past decade, putting one within a five-minute drive of almost every American.¹ As dollar stores have multiplied, the problems they create have multiplied also. They attract violent crime.² They put their workers and customers at risk of physical injury.³ They siphon sales away from locally owned businesses – particularly from grocery stores, which are vital community anchors.⁴ They overcharge customers through chronic scanning errors.⁵ They sell expired food and medications.⁶ The list of problems goes on and on.

But communities are beginning to turn them away. Over 140 towns and cities have rejected proposed dollar store developments, and more than 60 have put laws in place that limit their expansion. Most of these battles have focused on whether a dollar store is or isn’t allowed under a community’s zoning code. But a district court’s decision, in Dorsey Development DG LLC versus Tangipahoa Parish Council–President Government and Tangipahoa Parish Planning Commission, takes a broader view of a local government’s authority. The court’s decision recognizes a local government’s responsibility to protect the community’s well-being by, in this instance, refusing to allow development of a business model that exacerbates traffic congestion, attracts crime, endangers workers and customers, and harms local businesses, among other injuries. The court’s ruling could open the floodgates for many more communities to prevent dollar store proliferation.

Here is the background. In March 2023, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana’s Planning Commission rejected a development application from Metarie-based Dorsey Development Group to construct a building for Dollar General on an unzoned, unincorporated parcel of land just outside the town of Ponchatoula citing concerns for the “health and safety” of the Parish’s residents.⁷ The Parish already had several dozen chain dollar stores, and, based on their observations and experiences, Commission members were wary of the traffic problems, stormwater runoff issues, blight, and harm to existing businesses that the proposed dollar store would likely create.⁸

The developer’s representative appealed the Planning Commission’s decision to the Tangipahoa Parish Council, which heard his request at its next meeting. After public comments and discussion, no Council member offered a motion to grant the developer’s appeal and to approve the application, so the Planning Commission’s decision prevailed.⁹

The developer then sued the Parish, arguing that the Planning Commission’s decision to deny his development permit and the Council’s tacit support of the Commission’s decision had been “arbitrary and capricious” and had no rational basis, since the proposed development plan met all the Parish’s technical site requirements. But Louisiana district court judge Brian Abels disagreed, supporting the Planning Commission’s decision.

The Planning Commission’s action was based on a local government’s authority to use its “police power” to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens.¹⁰ The police power (the term comes from “policy”) derives from the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”¹¹ The federal government retains some police power for itself, then delegates the remainder to states which, in turn, retain some for themselves and delegate the rest to local governments.

At the local level, police power generally encompasses regulations that promote public health and safety and that discourage unhealthy or disorderly activities. Public health codes, building codes, professional licensing requirements, and other regulations that protect the public good are all examples of local police power. Local governments have used the police power to protect wetlands,¹² regulate automobile towing,¹³ prohibit fracking,¹⁴ and ban smoking in public places,¹⁵ among many other things.

Judge Abels’s November 14, 2023 ruling focused on whether Tangipahoa Parish was correct in using its police power to reject Dorsey Development’s application. Abels’s six-page decision explained that Louisiana’s constitution gives localities the authority to regulate land use and that, even though the Parish had chosen not to zone the particular property in question, the Parish could nonetheless regulate land use through ordinances, as long as it does so with consistency and without prejudice.

In his ruling, Abel carefully outlined each step in reaching his conclusion. He began by citing Tangipahoa Parish’s development ordinance, which specifically gives the Parish the authority to “promote the public health, safety and general welfare.” He then explained that, even though a proposed development might conform with applicable ordinances, the Parish can still reject a proposal if it is “rationally related to legitimate governmental interests like public health, safety, and the general welfare.”¹⁶ Finally, he carefully evaluated the credibility of each of the Parish Planning Commission and Council members who testified in the trial, concluding that each of them had legitimate, credible concerns about the negative impacts the proposed store would likely have.

Judge Abel’s ruling was not the first of its kind. In 2022, a Georgia judge reached a similar conclusion about a local government’s authority to evaluate development proposals based on their likely impact on public well-being.¹⁷ Newton County, Georgia makes certain uses “conditional,” based on conditions such as traffic, public safety, and economic impact. A developer applied for a Conditional Use Permit to build a store for Dollar General, but the County rejected the application. In its subsequent lawsuit seeking to reverse the County’s decision, the developers claimed that requiring a Conditional Use Permit for development of a dollar store was “an irrational requirement that does not serve the public health, safety or welfare, while giving unfettered discretion to (the) Board of Commissioners to deny or approve a CUP request.” The judge, however, disagreed, finding (among other things) that the County does, in fact, have authority to deny development permits for projects that it believes are not in the best interest of public well-being.

In Tangipahoa Parish, the developer appealed Judge Abel’s decision and, in October 2024, the state’s three-judge First Circuit Court of Appeal overturned the decision  — but not on the basis of police power.¹⁸ The appeals court focused instead on whether the planning commission and Parish Council had done their homework on the likely harms the project would cause, pointing out, for example, that several members of the planning commission and the Parish Council said that they had not reviewed the developer’s traffic study. While the outcome ultimately means that the developer could, in fact, build a dollar store there, the Court of Appeals’ decision did not challenge or disagree with the Parish’s authority to use its police power to reject development proposals.

Judge Abels’s decision therefore remains significant for the many towns and cities pushing back against the rapid growth of chain dollar stores. Communities may now be on firmer ground in rejecting dollar store development proposals, particularly if they document their reasons for concluding that a proposed store may harm the community, and courts now have a solid precedent for supporting local government decisions to turn away dollar stores. Tangipahoa Parish could pave the way for countless other communities to stop dollar store proliferation.