It’s a hard pill to swallow.
Yet another Duane Reade is set to close on the Upper East Side next month — part of a string of closures affecting big-box pharmacies grappling with rampant crime.
The closure of at least five other big-box pharmacies in the neighborhood over the last year has stoked residents’ fears over organized shoplifting — as they also face longer lines and extended travel times to get their prescriptions.
“My local Duane Reade, which is the only surviving nearby drug store, tells me that they get robbed about once an hour,” Andrew Fine, who serves as the co-vice president of the East 86th Street Association civic group, said in an X post in July.
“In the last five years or so, [crime has] definitely picked up,” Fine told The Post in a recent interview. “Obviously it’s a revolving door of justice, nobody spends any real time … and I think the criminals have figured this out. It’s a lot more organized.”
An employee at the soon-to-be-shuttered Duane Reade location at 1524 Second Ave., told East Side Feed that criminals are “stealing more than we’re selling.”
The store’s anticipated Nov. 12 closure comes months after a major robbery took place right outside of the store in January, the blog added.
An enraged shoplifter smashed windows and a customer in the hand with a hammer at the 1241 Lexington Ave. CVS location last year after his stealing spree was foiled – and that store shuttered within months.
That CVS along with two others, at 1223 Second Ave. and at 150 East 86th St., as well as a Rite Aid on 1849 Second Ave. are some of the other recent closures.
Fine called the string of closures “a big problem for neighborhoods all over Manhattan” — including the “definitely longer lines” observed at surviving, albeit overburdened, pharmacies.
“And it’s unfortunate that when you lose business, it also promotes blight, it’s a concern,” Fine told The Post. “Somebody keeping up the sidewalk, you don’t have somebody removing graffiti. You lose some quality of life.”
Another Upper East Sider, who would only give his first name, Bobby, suggested the decision lock up basic products on the part of businesses trying to ward off shoplifters is at least in part what has driven customers out of brick-and-mortar stores.
“It takes a couple minutes if you want to get shampoo or whatever,” Bobby said of the typical pharmacy shopping experience, “but these are systemic problems and have more to do with legislation and the liberal population’s tolerance, and they’re going to choose inconvenience over punitive measures.”
The mass shutdown comes as CVS announced it will close 10% of its US locations by the end of 2024. Walgreens, which has owned Duane Reade since 2010, has publicized similar plans to close 1,200 stores, as well as Rite Aid – which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023 and is slated to close 500 locations.
In fact, about 25% of Walgreens stores aren’t currently profitable, CEO Tim Wentworth said this summer. “We are at a point where the current pharmacy model is not sustainable.”
The news also comes after both CVS and Walgreens settled a $13.8 billion national opioid settlement in 2023.
“Our retail pharmacy business is central to our go-forward business strategy,” a spokesperson for Walgreens told The Post. “However, increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures are weighing on our able cover the costs associated with rent, staffing, and supply needs.”
While big-box stores like CVS and Duane Reade are reducing their presence in the area, smaller pharmacies told The Post they’re seeing an uptick in business due to transferred prescriptions.
“There are more prescriptions being transferred,” a pharmacy worker at Vital Health Apothecary told The Post, adding that many of the new scripts are coming from CVS.
An employee at Zitomers on Madison Avenue said they have seen an “increase, absolutely” in new prescriptions.
“My older neighbors have mentioned it, there’s a few places that have closed,” one Upper East Sider, who declined to provide his name, told The Post Monday. “They have their spots that they’ve preferred for years, they’re familiar with the premises and the workers there and they’re comfortable with them.
“I don’t know how far they’ll have to travel now,” he added.
Pharmacies have been closing “all over” the neighborhood for a while, noted longtime Upper East Sider Victor Rottner, 86.
“A lot of people have been impacted, but so far we haven’t been,” another Upper East Sider, who frequents a Walgreens near St. Catherine’s Park, said.
Bobby, however, maintains that there is still “no dearth of pharmacies in the area,” including big-box stores.
As of October 2024, there are still three CVS pharmacy locations and about half a dozen Walgreens pharmacies in the neighborhood.
“It’s New York, it’s high population density. If they all close, new ones will pop up and they’ll address whatever their cost issues are,” Bobby said, adding that many pharmacies – including CVS and Walgreens competitors Amazon and Capsule – deliver directly to residents’ doors.
“Quit moaning and whining about inaccessibility,” he added, “and pay the extra for the convenience.”
