Almost 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 Support shops throughout town shrunk to 395 places in 2024. That’s versus 435 final 12 months, and down sharply from a peak of 656 in 2014, in accordance with The Heart for an City Future’s annual report titled “State of the Chains.”
Walgreens Boots Alliance, which owns Duane Reade, was the worst hit. The Massive Apple’s largest chain closed 22 shops – leaving it with 189 places within the metropolis, in accordance with the report.
CVS, in the meantime, shuttered 10 shops leaving 160 places. Ceremony Support, 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 places this spring — one at 4 Occasions 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 Occasions Sq. shuttered in 2022 after weathering the depths of the pandemic.
Additionally in 2022, a Ceremony Support 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 prospects to name and await retailer clerks for every little thing from shampoo to painkillers.
To keep away from hassles, customers 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 folks working in these shops has contributed to fewer folks going into their shops,” Jonathan Bowles, govt 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 folks working there and stuff is locked up.”
Extra closures are possible. CVS, with 9,000 shops nationwide, introduced in 2021 that it will shutter 900 shops over a number of years.
“Selections are NOT primarily based on shoplifting or crime alone,’ a CVS spokeswoman informed The Publish when requested in regards to the current shutterings.
“Many elements are thought-about when closing a retailer, together with inhabitants shifts, client shopping for patterns, retailer and pharmacy density, pharmacy care entry, and group well being wants,” the spokeswoman added.
A spokesperson for Ceremony Support stated, “Like many within the business, we’re seeing the next degree of brazen shoplifting and arranged retail crime. We’re taking an lively function in serving to legislation enforcement of their pursuit of shoplifters, in addition to persevering with our efforts to coach group leaders on the influence of retail theft and advocate for options.”
Certainly, the pharmacy exodus is wreaking havoc on Massive Apple streets, in accordance with 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 lively 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 places nationwide, stated that one in 4 of its shops are unprofitable and that its is trying to “enhance our prospects’ in-store expertise.”
A Walgreens rep informed The Publish that the closings are pushed by elevated “regulatory and reimbursement pressures” which are “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 problem throughout the retail business.”
Massive Apple drugstores have been significantly arduous 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 fee 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 area totals a million sq. toes, in accordance with a New York Occasions report in August.
“A number of years in the past, I assumed we have been too heavy with drugstores on nearly each block,” stated Tom Harris, president of the Occasions Sq. Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes growth within the district. “However at any time when a pendulum swings too far in a single path it goes again.”
