Chain Drugstores Are Closing, But Not Because of Shoplifting

Shopping at big-name pharmacies like CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens involves so many products behind plexiglass, “It’s like shopping at a pharmacy 100 years ago, with a white-aproned clerk pushing around a ladder to grab your tinctures and tonics,” writes Henry Grabar for Slate.

The corporate behemoths are the frontline for one of the main talking points in the culture war that seems to focus on cities more than ever before in 2022.

The changes in how these businesses operate are a sign of large, era-defining forces at work, according to Grabar. “It’s a fundamental change for a business that transformed urban life with its breakneck expansion in the first decades of the 21^st century. And it comes alongside an industrywide retrenchment, as that exuberant overbuilding spree comes face to face with remote work and e-commerce.”

The evidence of the retrenchment is perhaps less conspicuous that the plexiglass, but these drug stores, including flagship urban locations, are closing all over the country.

The article includes a sober discussion of the shoplifting issue (“You can be skeptical of companies playing the blame game, but retail experts are certain: If shoplifting weren’t chipping into profits, you wouldn’t see plastic cases at all.”) as well as a proposed solution for the challenges: a federal bill supported by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores that would require online marketplaces to verify the identify of third-part sellers.

According to both this article and a February article by Jack Denton for Curbed, however, shoplifting isn’t the cause of store closures. Fundamentals are, and that fact will have significant consequences for the future of cities and communities.