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 Help shops throughout the town shrunk to 395 places in 2024. That’s versus 435 final 12 months, and down sharply from a peak of 656 in 2014, based on The Middle 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 Massive Apple – leaving it with simply 189 places, based on the report.
CVS, in the meantime, shuttered 10 shops leaving 160 places. Ceremony Help, 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 had been two large Duane Reade places this spring — one at 4 Occasions Sq. and the opposite on the nook of Broadway and West fiftieth Avenue. 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 Help at Eighth Avenue and West fiftieth Avenue shuttered. It’s now being redeveloped as a smaller-format Complete Meals retailer.
Specialists blame not solely crime but additionally drugstores’ stepped-up safety measures — most notably locking merchandise behind plexiglass, forcing prospects to name and look ahead to retailer clerks for every thing from shampoo to painkillers.
To keep away from hassles, customers are skipping drugstores altogether and shopping for extra necessities on-line.
“There is no doubt that locking up products, moving to automated check out and having fewer people working in these stores has contributed to fewer people going into their stores,” Jonathan Bowles, govt director of The Middle for an City Future, informed The Put up.
“More New Yorkers can purchase this merchandise online, but when they do go to these stores there are fewer people working there and stuff is locked up.”
Extra closures are doubtless. CVS, with 9,000 shops nationwide, introduced in 2021 that it could shutter 900 shops over a number of years.
“Choices are NOT based mostly on shoplifting or crime alone,’ a CVS spokeswoman informed The Put up when requested concerning the latest shutterings.
“Many factors are considered when closing a store, including population shifts, consumer buying patterns, store and pharmacy density, pharmacy care access, and community health needs,” the spokeswoman added.
A spokesperson for Ceremony Help mentioned, “Like many in the industry, we are seeing a higher level of brazen shoplifting and organized retail crime. We are taking an active role in helping law enforcement in their pursuit of shoplifters, as well as continuing our efforts to educate community leaders on the impact of retail theft and advocate for solutions.”
Certainly, the pharmacy exodus is wreaking havoc on Massive Apple streets, based on Bowles.
“There have been graffiti on the empty store buildings or homeless people who have decided to sleep [by the entrance] because there is not an active store there, so it’s not a healthy thing for our retail landscape,” Bowles mentioned.
Walgreens Boots Alliance mentioned in October it’s planning to shutter 500 shops in 2025 and 1,200 altogether over the subsequent three years.
The Chicago-based pharmacy chain, which has round 8,700 places nationwide, mentioned that one in 4 of its shops are unprofitable and that its is seeking to “improve our customers’ in-store experience.”
A Walgreens rep informed The Put up that the closings are pushed by elevated “regulatory and reimbursement pressures” which might be “weighing on our ability to cover the costs associated with rent, staffing, and supply needs.”
The corporate has indirectly tied its retailer closings to crime, however executives have mentioned on earnings calls that “shrink” — which suggests theft in company converse — “represents a serious systemic issue across the retail industry.”
Massive Apple drugstores have been significantly laborious 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 vacancy rate in New York City” as a result of demand is low for the bigger areas they usually occupy, Bowles added. By one measure, empty drugstore house totals a million sq. toes, based on a New York Occasions report in August.
“A few years ago, I thought we were too heavy with drugstores on almost every block,” mentioned Tom Harris, president of the Occasions Sq. Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes growth within the district. “But whenever a pendulum swings too far in one direction it goes back.”
