Several pastors in Memphis are taking to their pulpits to urge parishioners to start a boycott.

The target? Family Dollar stores, which the pastors say have problems with trash strewn across the properties, rodents and other unsanitary conditions.

They say the conditions are a sign that the company does not respect the African-American and low-income communities it serves.

"It is systemic as it relates to African-Americans being dealt with in this kind of manner, and being at the bottom of the economic totem pole," said Apostle John Ragland III of Christ-ian Fellowship. “It’s preposterous to think of a store or any corporation that has an economic magnitude as they do that will allow this kind of squalor to take place in any community.”

Rats spotted at Mt. Moriah store

A Family Dollar store at 6550 Mt. Moriah Road was shut down by the Shelby County Health Department in May. Both it and a store at 3515 Ridgemont Ave. are scheduled to appear in Shelby County Environmental Court in August. Family Dollar stores have appeared in the court another nine times this year, although those cases have since been disposed.

While inspecting the Mt. Moriah store, a health department employee saw a customer screaming “because he saw a huge rat in the dog food area,” saw several rats on the shelves and found a live rat in a trap in the stock room. The smell of rat droppings was so bad that the inspector left with a headache, according to a copy of the inspection report

The rat issue had been going on for months, according to store employees.

“The onsite manager has sent several video and pictures to the District Manager and the corporate office has not responded,” the inspector wrote.

Store managers currently check trash when the store opens, at mid-day and at closing each day, according to Randy Guilar, vice president of investor relations at Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar.

"We absolutely respect Memphis, Shelby County and every community that we do business in," Guilar said. "We want to be good corporate partners to the community. Every request that we have received has been promptly passed along to the appropriate field leader to be addressed."

The company is working with local health officials and pest control to address the store closure at 6550 Mt. Moriah, he said.

Citizens 'treated with disrespect'

The charge against the stores has been led by community organizer Patricia Rogers, who does public relations work for several of the pastors. She has contacted media about the stores, called pastors and spoke at the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association's meeting Tuesday.

"I don’t want citizens who are under-served being treated with disrespect," Rogers said. "The majority of the customers at Family Dollar stores are the working poor.”

Rogers said she has contacted Guilar before but not seen a change in the stores.

On Sunday, Bishop Kendall Anderson, pastor of Homeland Church of God in Christ, told his church members they should shop at stores without garbage on the curbside.

“The consumer will always make an impact if there’s enough of us to hold them accountable," Anderson said.

The Rev. Leonard Dawson, pastor of Canecreek Baptist Church, said he'd also been contacted by Rogers about the problem and planned to speak with his congregants this coming Sunday.

"We need to insist on places of business that we go to being clean," Dawson said.

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Katherine Burgess covers county government, religion and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.