Vice marts plague Macon food deserts

When the Kroger on Pio Avenue closed in 2018, it left residents of Unionville — a historic Black neighborhood southwest of downtown Macon — without a local grocery store. 

Kroger’s departure created what experts call a food desert, an area where people have limited access to healthy, affordable food. Food deserts “are correlated with a high prevalence of overweight, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and premature death,” according to research by The Georgia Rural Health Innovation Center at Mercer University.

“When they closed the Kroger, that was disastrous for this area,” long-time Macon resident Johnny Hollingshed Jr. told The Melody. 

A few businesses have attempted to fill the gap left by major grocery chains. My Store, which is just down Pio Nono from The Frank Johnson Recreation Center, offers meat, vegetables and some packaged goods.

More prevalent are food marts, small convenience stores that pepper Unionville. The most recent mart opened at the corner of Montpelier and Pio Nono avenues in a former CVS location.

While these locations ostensibly provide some fresh groceries, neighborhood residents are concerned about their lack of food options and the marts’ more popular items: alcohol, cigarettes and gambling machines.

County defines ‘vice marts’

Macon-Bibb County commissioners have battled the proliferation of these stores, establishing a definition for “vice marts” in 2020 to distinguish them from other small businesses that previously fell under the “grocery store” category.

Vice marts offer “processed shelf-stable or refrigerated food and drink items; fountain and brewed drinks; handheld prepared food items; automotive items; tobacco products; family planning products; lottery products; gifts; over-the-counter medications; or similar items,” and typically have less than 10,000-square-feet of retail space, according to the county code. 

Food marts are not prohibited by the county: owners have to commit at least 85% of their retail space for food and nonalcoholic items and offer a minimum amount of meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, bread and eggs.

 Any business that falls under the vice mart classification cannot receive a new alcohol license, instead, they become a general retail business, District 8 county commissioner Virgil Watkins said. However, existing “vice marts” are “grandfathered in,” so owners can continue to annually renew their alcohol license as long as their ownership doesn’t change.

By regulating alcohol licensing – another major stream of revenue for many of these businesses – the county can make it more challenging for marts to generate no more than 50% of their revenue from gambling machines as required by law.

“An alcohol license is a privilege, and in some cases it’s a necessity for the location itself,” District 5 county commissioner  Seth Clark said. “Meaning that we could really stifle the saturation of [food marts].”

Vice marts make a significant percentage of revenue from gambling machines, also known as coin-operated amusement machines (COAM).

“Some of the most successful businesses in our community are pulling in or reporting revenue of over $300,000 a month just off those machines,” Watkins said “No one with any real hope of the future and how they’re going to make money… is playing these games like that. These only exist in the poorest zip codes in our community and America.”

‘Advantage of convenience’

Derek James Brown posted on Facebook about the store that opened in the old CVS building, sparking a community conversation about food access and vice marts. Born and raised in Macon, Brown lives in Bloomfield, about four miles from the former CVS. 

“The [vice marts] take advantage of the convenience,” Brown told The Melody. “A lot of those stores around the city have the exact same thing, all the way down to the oil.”

While these businesses don’t overtly advertise gambling as their main service, there are often signs. 

“Anytime you see one that says food mart and has a 777 on it, they usually don’t have what we want or what we need,” said Brown, referencing the number sequence associated with slot machines or COAMs.

Bridget Oliver, a resident living in the Napier area, echoed similar sentiments on the abundance of these stores. 

“If you’re a grocery store, be a grocery store… If you one of those ones that plays the machines and stuff, be that store,” said Oliver. “Don’t come in the Black community disguising yourself as something else.”

He noted the businesses are so prevalent, some are being built right next door to each other. 

Clark said county attorneys are drafting changes to the county code that would limit the number of food marts in a geographic area, but the county cannot ban them entirely due to state law. 

“We’re committed to being as creative to work around state preemption as possible, as long as a majority of the commission supports,” he said.

Food marts must also meet the fresh food requirements in order to qualify for alcohol licenses granted by the county. However, some just barely meet the threshold.

“The industry seems to have sat down and read our law in detail, and now they’re picking us for the loopholes,” said Watkins. “Yes, you are adhering to what’s on paper, but the spirit of the law is different.”

Kroger also recently announced it was adding gambling machines in Bibb County.

‘Don’t sacrifice my street’

Despite county regulations, these stores – through means of alcohol, gambling and inflated grocery prices – garner enough revenue to stay in business. 

However, Brown believes Unionville residents have a powerful tool in determining what opens in their neighborhood: their spending habits.

“You have to have a mindset of the word ‘no’ in order to drive some of those stores out,” he said, adding that when a store does offer good food options, it should be supported, endorsed and embraced. “When we start to support ourselves, the rest will take place. The change will come.” 

Other Macon residents, like Hollingshed, believe that change needs to come from the outside. He acknowledged Macon’s growth but expressed frustration that communities like Unionville are being neglected.

“Macon aspires to grow. I get that, but they leave so many essential things behind,” he said. “They want the new shiny thing over here, yeah, but what about these people who have toiled in this community so long, and now they can’t even have a grocery store?”

The county is not only responsible for commercial growth, according to Hollingshed, but for neighborhoods like his own. 

“These people go, ‘we want to grow, we want to attract more businesses, we want to attract more industries,’” he said. “I get that. And so we have to do these kinds of things to attract them. But at the same time, don’t sacrifice my street.

“I think that our concentration has become more on building up doing things for the city of Macon, more so than doing things for the people of the city of Macon.”