Walgreens revealed the store it is closing on Chicago’s South Side lost more than $1 million last year due to high theft rates and declining prescription sales.
Fox 32 Chicago reports executives from the pharmacy chain met with residents to explain their decision to close the store on June 4. When the news of the closing broke, street protests erupted outside of the location. Alderman William Hall declared the chain should be “charged with first-degree corporate abandonment” while another politician, Alderman Lamont Robinson, said he was drafting a “big box ordinance” that would prohibit national chains like Walgreens from closing stores in Chicago neighborhoods.
Reginald Johnson, a Walgreens regional vice president, told a community forum on Saturday, “I’m here today because we’re closing the store at 86th and Cottage Grove. But I just want to make sure everyone understands closing stores are not our goal. This is the last resort.”
The store had served the community for over 20 years. Johnson explained the location is no longer safe for its employees.
“Theft at this store is 16%,” Johnson said. “That’s four times above the company average.”
Jason Vasquez, Walgreens district manager, added, “Lock boxes help us protect the merchandise in the store. A lot of the time, those lock boxes were getting destroyed. And that’s at a great cost to the company.”
While Walgreens spent $400,000 a year on security guards in the store, crime did not diminish.
“We’ve had people jump across the counters, because we sell liquor behind the counter, taking liquor, cigarettes,” said Lonnie Fuqua, the store’s manager. “That wears. That wears down. Not so much the financial piece but the endurance of that day in and day out.”
Walgreens has encouraged residents to use its nearest store, which is just over a mile away, and it is also promoting its prescriptions by mail service.
Photo by Mike Mozart / Flickr Creative Commons
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