Cascade Dollar General Now Claiming to Be a Grocery Store, Hearing Postponed

CASCADE, MD News (7/6/2023) – After a court order sending the proposed Dollar General in Cascade back to the Board of Zoning Appeals, Outdoor Contractors has now amended their appeal to claim that the proposed “Dollar General Market” will be a grocery store, not a general retail store as previously filed.

In the appeal, which was filed so late that the hearing has now been postponed until August 2, 2023, Outdoor Contractors changes the classification of the proposed usage from “Retail Store” to “Grocery Store”, a use which requires a Special Exception decision by the board according to zoning ordinances.

As such, the decision now falls back on if the “Dollar General Market”, which according to the filings will only have 1/3 of the store floor space dedicated to grocery sales, truly meets the definition of a grocery store and if it meets the intended purpose of the Rural Village zoning.

Since the Washington County zoning ordinance does not provide a definition for a grocery store, Outdoor Contractors provided several common definitions in their amended filing, noting that the common definitions do not specify how much of a store must be dedicated to food sales to qualify as a grocery store. However, more likely than the usage of common definitions, the definition of a grocery store would then fall back to the state level.

Maryland Code § 9-254 defines a grocery store as follows. However, this definition was intended to only apply in § 9-254, and the state may have potentially ambiguous or conflicting definitions in other parts of Maryland code.

(2) “Grocery store” means an entity:

(i) whose primary business is selling food at retail to the general public for off-premises consumption; and

(ii) at least 20% of the gross receipts of which are derived from the retail sale of fresh produce, meats, and dairy products.

2010 Maryland Code TAX – PROPERTY, Justia

Therefore, if the Maryland definition is to be followed, the Dollar General Market would need to plan to have at least 20% of its gross sales from retail sale of fresh produce, meats, and dairy. With DG Market focused on “fresh food“, it is possible they may intend to meet that expectation and therefore meet the definition of a grocery store. However, the amended filing did not specify what percentage of their gross sales they expect to come from these types of foods.

There is a second consideration which the Board of Zoning Appeals must take into account, and that is if the DG Market will meet the intents of the purpose of the Rural Village zoning.

This means the board will now need to consider if a Dollar General Market is in line with preserving “the unique historic or rural character of existing villages”. Specifically, the board must consider that “it is expected that development will be residential and a limited amount of mixed rural services.” While the zoning ordinance does not define “limited amount”, it will likely become a topic debate if Cascade having two grocery stores less than a mile away from each other will exceed the intentions of the zoning ordinance, or if the size and nature of the DG Market will “detract from the existing rural or historic character of the village.”

The new hearing will take place on August 2, 2023 at the County Administration Building, 100 W. Washington St.

Article by multiple RFHC contributors.