Citing losses, owner shutters dollar store By RYAN MCCARTHY [email protected] Daffy Doug’s Discount Dollar owner Doug Austin says he’d “rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable.” That’s the outlook he says he took when his popular dol- lar store around mile marker 48.5 of U.S. 1 in Marathon closed for good Sunday. The store was open for just under three years. Austin said his landlord moved to evict him when he fell 60 days behind on the $11,000 monthly rent. He estimates 5,000 shop- pers crowded the store on its final weekend, waiting upward of an hour to check out items 50 percent off. By closing Sunday, Austin said the store was giving away per- ishables like milk and cheese. Austin said he believes the impact on lower-income resi- dents that frequented his store will be “enormous.” He says residents turned to Daffy Doug’s for discount prices on home essentials like paper towels and toilet paper. “We heard it every day TOURISM from the poorer people,” he said, referring to their appreci- ation of lower prices. Austin said a combination of factors led to the closing, most notably those same lower-income consumers hunkering down in a down economy. He said customers are buying “necessities,” as opposed to “trinkets and fun things” with a much higher markup. “We were always busy,” he said, “but we have to do $3 million [in business per year] to break even. We only have 18 parking spaces,” he said. Parking was a huge issue, Austin said. He went as far as to rent si