CVS is closing 900 stories nationwide, including some in San Francisco

[C.]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/inves...res/index.html

New York (CNN Business)CVS Health is closing 900 stores over the next three years, amounting to nearly 10% of its footprint, in response to the changing of "consumer buying patterns."

The drug store chain said Thursday that the closures will result in a retail presence that ensures it has the "right kinds of stores in the right locations for consumers and for the business." A list of locations shutting down, which will happen beginning next spring, was not immediately released.

The closures are part of broader realignment of its retail strategy of its roughly 10,000 locations. That includes remodeling some stores to include more health services, such as primary care, and an "enhanced version" of its HealthHub layout.

Part of their strategy also includes creating “new store formats” which means the remaining stores will be adjusted into three types: sites that are dedicated to offering primary care services, an enhanced version of HealthHUB locations, and the traditional CVS Pharmacy store.

Walgreens also has announced multiple store closures, with at least five in San Francisco. However, the company said it’s due to concerns over “ongoing organized retail crime” in the city.

San Francisco leaders quickly refuted that claim, believing that the local closures were related to Walgreens’ broader plan to close about 200 locations nationwide.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by C.

Walgreens also has announced multiple store closures, with at least five in San Francisco. However, the company said it’s due to concerns over “ongoing organized retail crime” in the city.

San Francisco leaders quickly refuted that claim, believing that the local closures were related to Walgreens’ broader plan to close about 200 locations nationwide.

S.F. district attorney charges woman with stealing more than $40K in Target store merchandise
Lauren Hernández
Nov. 17, 2021
Updated: Nov. 17, 2021 9:30 p.m.

A woman described by the San Francisco district attorney’s office as a prolific retail thief is facing multiple charges in connection with more than 100 thefts from Target that total more than $40,000 in value, district attorney’s officials said Wednesday.

Aziza Graves has been charged with eight felony counts of grand theft and 120 misdemeanor counts of petty theft in thefts of items from the Stonestown Target store between October 2020 to November 2021, district attorney’s officials said. Graves was arrested by San Francisco police at the Stonestown Target location on Tuesday, authorities said.

The woman’s arrest is the result of an operation conducted by the district attorney’s office, District Attorney Chesa Boudin said in tweet on Wednesday morning. San Francisco city officials in September unveiled a plan to respond to reports of retail theft in the city, and district attorney’s officials said Graves arrest and subsequent charging is part of the office’s “commitment to the Organized Retail Theft Taskforce.”

Boudin told The Chronicle the arrest is the first step in what will be a “whole series of arrests” related to the district attorney’s office ongoing retail theft operations, adding that they are handling more than half a dozen active investigations.

Boudin said Graves stole laundry detergent, among other items, that are frequently stolen and resold for profit. Grand theft refers to “money, labor, or real or personal property taken” with a value exceeding $950, according to the California Legislative Information website . . . .

. . . Graves used self-checkout kiosks after choosing merchandise from the store floor.

“She reportedly scanned the items and then submitted a nominal cash payment of $1, or in some instances, 1 cent,” district attorneys officials said, adding that Graves would then leave the store without completing each transaction.

Scott said he hopes this case “sends a strong message to would-be shoplifters that their lawless conduct won’t be tolerated in San Francisco” . . . .

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...h-16630041.php

$40K is a whole lot of laundry detergent.

[Steely Dan]

CVS and Walgreens generally only build shit-tacular suburban style craporamas with fucking parking lots at prominent street intersections all over Chicago.

I say let 'em all close and get redeveloped!

[bnk]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...h-16630041.php

$40K is a whole lot of laundry detergent.

What I do not understand is how she got away with this often , over a year! 120 counts sounds like 120 times this happened. Why did the law let this go on for so long? I understand the $950 part but where is the common sense here if this goes on and on.....

[dave8721]

CVS has waaaaaaay too many stores as it is. There is one on every suburban corner, sometimes more than one on a single corner.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

CvS and Walgreens generally only build shit-tacular suburban style craporamas with fucking parking lots at prominent street intersections all over Chicago.

I say let 'em all close and get redeveloped.

Fine . . . in Chicago.

In San Francisco many locations are in the ground floor of multi-story buildings such as the one across the street from me, the upper floors of which are medical offices, and carry lots of food items similar to what a 7-11 might have (except there are very few of those in the city).



I grabbed milk, eggs, soda, snacks, frozen foods etc several times a week from this store and would miss it. The Walgreen's up the street already closed due to theft (see above).

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Fine . . . in Chicago.

In San Francisco many locations are in the ground floor of multi-story buildings such as the one across the street from me, the upper floors of which are medical offices, and carry lots of food items similar to what a 7-11 might have (except there are very few of those in the city).



I grabbed milk, eggs, soda, snacks, frozen foods etc several times a week from this store and would miss it. The Walgreen's up the street already closed due to theft (see above).

I have a similar-looking CVS a two minute walk from my place (https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8807...7i16384!8i8192) , but I think I've been there once, because it's equally close to Target and like 3 different Walgreen's stores. The Target also has a CVS pharmacy inside (which I do use). I wouldn't be surprised if this store goes...

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

In San Francisco many locations are in the ground floor of multi-story buildings such as the one across the street from me, the upper floors of which are medical offices, and carry lots of food items similar to what a 7-11 might have (except there are very few of those in the city).

Some more urban CVS's. 8 locations within a 5-10 min walk of Market and Kearney.

https://goo.gl/maps/eyKYVKSgTPN3DCgr7
https://goo.gl/maps/Sa9Nnsphc1e5GyWRA
https://goo.gl/maps/JUrGTdikpfxfS93m7
https://goo.gl/maps/HPxmYAbdgghDKopdA
https://goo.gl/maps/YAJTxT4Gn1dPYGCP8
https://goo.gl/maps/m9eSTjPDcAk8ZSAN9
https://goo.gl/maps/exsoqaZCGKbL49RS9
https://goo.gl/maps/iBbwD8SuCxdjtqNJ6

[twister244]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

CVS and Walgreens generally only build shit-tacular suburban style craporamas with fucking parking lots at prominent street intersections all over Chicago.

I say let 'em all close and get redeveloped!

With ONE exception. The Walgreens in Wicker Park at North/Milwaukee is insane. Is that the best use for that old building? No, but it's the coolest Walgreens I have ever been in.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wa...QlkcnVnc3RvcmU

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by twister244

With ONE exception. The Walgreens in Wicker Park at North/Milwaukee is insane. Is that the best use for that old building? No, but it's the coolest Walgreens I have ever been in.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wa...QlkcnVnc3RvcmU

The one in the Wrigley Building is pretty cool too.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by twister244

With ONE exception. The Walgreens in Wicker Park at North/Milwaukee is insane. Is that the best use for that old building? No, but it's the coolest Walgreens I have ever been in.

yes, there are of course exceptions to the rule, like that magnificent Wicker Park example. and most of the walgreeens/CVS's in downtown where SIGSEGV lives are located in the retail bases of regular old buildings.


but out in the neighborhoods of chicago, 9 times out 10, walgreens/CVS build suburban crap like this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9246...7i16384!8i8192



I'm a bit more fortunate in that my neighborhood walgreens up here in lincoln square is an old school one from the '40s, and they built them with the parking lot in the back of the store back in the good old days:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9686...7i16384!8i8192

[JManc]

The Wicker Park Walgreen's is pretty damn cool and the Pharmacy is in the old vault so no breaking in and stealing fentanyl from that place.

[sopas ej]

Was Walgreens like the Woolworth's of Chicago?

Before my mom married my dad, in the 1960s (1964-1967 I believe), my mom lived in Chicago. She said that the Walgreens there had restaurants or lunch counters/soda fountains. So when the little rinky-dink Walgreens locations started popping up here in southern California (in the 90s, I think?), she mentioned that.

All the Rite Aids here used to be Thrifty's, and the Rite Aids here all have an ice cream counter that sells Thrifty's ice cream.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

CVS and Walgreens generally only build shit-tacular suburban style craporamas with fucking parking lots at prominent street intersections all over Chicago.

I say let 'em all close and get redeveloped!

I wish Walgreens used the design of their Armitage Store in Lincoln Park as their blueprint (it wasn't a retro-fit or rehab, it was new construction):

https://www.google.com/maps/place/W+...!4d-87.6485122

Walgreens is a customer of mine, and I've actually asked them about this, and they have data that shows stores without parking perform significantly worse than stores that do have parking. For further salt in the wound, stores where parking is in the back of the building and customer needs to walk around the building to enter, do worse than stores with parking in front of store; and for security reasons, they do not want to have multiple entrance/exits, where they can avoid it. Hence we get the shitty template they have for urban stores, at least in Chicago.

[Steely Dan]

^ corporate laziness knows no bounds.

the walgreens in my neighborhood has the main street-front entrance in front and then a separate entrance in back for the parking lot behind the store.

it may do worse than other locations around town with a single entrance and the parking lot in front, i wouldn't know, but it has been there for like 75 years now, so......

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Was Walgreens like the Woolworth's of Chicago?

Before my mom married my dad, in the 1960s (1964-1967 I believe), my mom lived in Chicago. She said that the Walgreens there had restaurants or lunch counters/soda fountains.

yeah, the old school walgreeens in chicago (and perhaps elsewhere?) used to have soda fountain counters, and many had an attached sit-down restaurant named "Wags".

some of them still existed into the 80s when i was a little kid, but i think they closed that entire side of their business model down in the 90s.

[Investing In Chicago]

I lived a block away from this CVS for 7 years, and fantasized about it burning down almost every day.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9476...7i16384!8i8192

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ corporate laziness knows no bounds.

I don't know if that's corporate laziness though. If the data shows stores with no visible parking have poorer performance that those with visible parking, then the bean counters are going to building front facing parking lots and in many jurisdictions (Houston), they are required. As for the low quality cookie-cutter buildings themselves; everyone does it, banks, restaurants, car dealer ships, extended stay hotels and so on because these buildings are not mean to be permanent. They either tear them down or move on.

[Steely Dan]

"yes, we're taking a big massive dump upon the streetscapes of these cities with these god-awful shit-boxes we build everywhere, but so the fuck what? it's great for our bottom line!!! screw the communities that we decide to locate in, there's no law that says we have to be good, or even decent, neighbors. QUICK, everyone race to the bottom!"

they can and should do better.

but they almost never do.





the real player at fault here is the city of chicago for allowing such anti-urban garbage to be built in the first place.

Chicago: a mostly good american city, in spite of itself.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by JManc

I don't know if that's corporate laziness though. If the data shows stores with no visible parking have poorer performance that those with visible parking, then the bean counters are going to building front facing parking lots and in many jurisdictions (Houston), they are required. As for the low quality cookie-cutter buildings themselves; everyone does it, banks, restaurants, car dealer ships, extended stay hotels and so on because these buildings are not mean to be permanent. They either tear them down or move on.

CVS/Walgreens and parking has a lot to do with the area or the city they are in.

There are a lot of CVS and Walgreens stores in NYC, and to my knowledge none of them have parking (there might be a rare few off the beaten path). They are all urban/pedestrian designed stores.

[JManc]

New York and parts of places like Chicago or SF can get away with that. People walk there. There are a couple of CVS's downtown Houston with no parking but that's it. Everywhere else they are surrounded by a sea of parking and a long ass line at the drive-thru.