Practically 10% of New York Metropolis’s drugstores have closed this 12 months — a dramatic drop following a decade of retreats that has slashed their quantity by 40% as shoplifting continues to run rampant, in accordance an explosive examine.
The variety of Walgreens, Duane Reade, CVS and Ceremony Assist shops throughout the town shrunk to 395 areas in 2024. That’s versus 435 final 12 months, and down sharply from a peak of 656 in 2014, based on The Heart for an City Future’s annual report titled “State of the Chains.”
The worst-hit pharmacy chain was was the most important within the metropolis — Walgreens Boots Alliance — which owns Duane Reade. It closed 22 shops within the Huge Apple – leaving it with simply 189 areas, based on the report.
CVS, in the meantime, shuttered 10 shops leaving 160 areas. Ceremony Assist, which filed for chapter safety final 12 months, closed eight shops this 12 months and now operates simply 46 within the metropolis.
Among the many casualties have been two large Duane Reade areas this spring — one at 4 Instances Sq. and the opposite on the nook of Broadway and West fiftieth Road. That’s after the 16,200-square-foot Walgreens flagship retailer at One Instances Sq. shuttered in 2022 after weathering the depths of the pandemic.
Additionally in 2022, a Ceremony Assist at Eighth Avenue and West fiftieth Road shuttered. It’s now being redeveloped as a smaller-format Entire Meals retailer.
Specialists blame not solely crime but in addition drugstores’ stepped-up safety measures — most notably locking merchandise behind plexiglass, forcing clients to name and look forward to retailer clerks for every thing from shampoo to painkillers.
To keep away from hassles, consumers are skipping drugstores altogether and shopping for extra necessities on-line.
“There isn’t any doubt that locking up merchandise, shifting to automated try and having fewer individuals working in these shops has contributed to fewer individuals going into their shops,” Jonathan Bowles, government director of The Heart for an City Future, informed The Publish.
“Extra New Yorkers can buy this merchandise on-line, however once they do go to those shops there are fewer individuals working there and stuff is locked up.”
Extra closures are doubtless. CVS, with 9,000 shops nationwide, introduced in 2021 that it will shutter 900 shops over a number of years.
“Choices are NOT primarily based on shoplifting or crime alone,’ a CVS spokeswoman informed The Publish when requested in regards to the latest shutterings.
“Many elements are thought-about when closing a retailer, together with inhabitants shifts, shopper shopping for patterns, retailer and pharmacy density, pharmacy care entry, and group well being wants,” the spokeswoman added.
A spokesperson for Ceremony Assist stated, “Like many within the trade, we’re seeing the next stage of brazen shoplifting and arranged retail crime. We’re taking an energetic position in serving to regulation enforcement of their pursuit of shoplifters, in addition to persevering with our efforts to coach group leaders on the affect of retail theft and advocate for options.”
Certainly, the pharmacy exodus is wreaking havoc on Huge Apple streets, based on Bowles.
“There have been graffiti on the empty retailer buildings or homeless individuals who have determined to sleep [by the entrance] as a result of there may be not an energetic retailer there, so it’s not a wholesome factor for our retail panorama,” Bowles stated.
Walgreens Boots Alliance stated in October it’s planning to shutter 500 shops in 2025 and 1,200 altogether over the following three years.
The Chicago-based pharmacy chain, which has round 8,700 areas nationwide, stated that one in 4 of its shops are unprofitable and that its is trying to “enhance our clients’ in-store expertise.”
A Walgreens rep informed The Publish that the closings are pushed by elevated “regulatory and reimbursement pressures” which can be “weighing on our capacity to cowl the prices related to lease, staffing, and provide wants.”
The corporate has indirectly tied its retailer closings to crime, however executives have stated on earnings calls that “shrink” — which implies theft in company communicate — “represents a critical systemic difficulty throughout the retail trade.”
Huge Apple drugstores have been notably onerous hit by a criminal offense wave that accelerated with the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.
Shuttered drugstores account for “an outsize share of the emptiness charge in New York Metropolis” as a result of demand is low for the bigger areas they sometimes occupy, Bowles added. By one measure, empty drugstore house totals a million sq. ft, based on a New York Instances report in August.
“Just a few years in the past, I believed we have been too heavy with drugstores on virtually each block,” stated Tom Harris, president of the Instances Sq. Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes growth within the district. “However each time a pendulum swings too far in a single course it goes again.”
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