1/30/2022. Temporarily, on this day, last friday, Dollar Generals across the state of Ohio suddenly and without warning closed down, marking a sudden very strange occurrence that had previously been unseen in the state of Ohio. 

Workers at Dollar General reported that on the day they received a call from Dollar General corporate office, ordering them to close down. They were given no reason, nor timeline of when they would reopen, but of course complied with the order, choosing to shut down accordingly.

One store in Westerville attempted to provide an explanation, stating that the store was “temporarily closed for inventory” and that the store would reopen at 11:30. However, in reality, there was indeed an explanation for why the stores had closed.

Outlined by Ohio Attorney Dave Yost, who sued Dollar General back in November, the stores closed down in order to re-tag all their shelf prices, which was the source of the dispute in the first place, and the original reason that they were sued. The Attorney general expressed gratitude that the Dollar Generals were making a step in the right direction, but insisted that he would continue the court order in order to make sure that Dollar General was complying with Ohio’s fair market laws.

Dollar General’s public relations team responded with their own explanation, stating that they were addressing an overnight system error. This explanation hasn’t gained much traction compared to Yost’s explanation.

Whilst one might think this would be impactful towards the poorer residents of the state that depend on the cheap store chain, in a really rather poor state, this isn’t so much the case, largely due to the very short time that the stores were closed. The poorer residents simply waited until the stores were reopened in order to purchase their desired products. One Ohio resident is quoted as saying “Only in Ohio.”