Walgreens closures open the door for San Francisco’s neighborhood pharmacies

Nick Shoman has been with Charlie’s Pharmacy since he was 12 when his parents bought the storefront on Fillmore Street and Golden Gate Avenue. He started helping out on the floor and quickly got to know the names of the customers.
Almost 35 years later, Shoman now runs the business with his brother, and the family-owned drugstore has become an integral part of the neighborhood.
Shoman knows his regular customers and their families and calls his pharmacist Hank Chen the “best in San Francisco” because he takes time for each customer to look after and advise them individually. Charlie’s Pharmacy works with nearby nonprofits to offer delivery and bulk orders. Shoman will occasionally agree to refill prescriptions on credit for customers in financial distress.
Shoman says that’s a far cry from Walgreens, which recently announced plans to close five San Francisco locations.
“In a chain of stores, customers are just numbers,” he said.
Walgreens blamed uncontrolled retail theft for the recent wave of closings.
A Walgreens at 300 Gough St. is among San Francisco stores that are closing due to ongoing retail theft. (Kevin N. Hume / The Examiner)
Yet even San Francisco – which is known to be particularly tough on retail chains – has relatively little leverage over Walgreens or other corporate retailers when it comes to closing stores. This reality has left officials vying for recourse and struggling to find a way forward to prevent something similar from happening again.
Independent drugstores could be a way to fill the void left by corporate outlets in some communities.
Owners can live well, and the stores offer customers bespoke services and attention that they may not find in chain competitors, according to David Valencia, manager at Reliable Rexall Sunset Pharmacy.
“I think you will see more independents emerge,” he said.
Rexall Drugs in the Inner Sunset pharmacist David Valencia says his store offers specialty products that most chains don’t have. (Kevin N. Hume / The Examiner)
Any control the city has over the flow of business in and out of the market is done through the permitting process overseen by the planning commission.
For example, San Francisco’s formula retail ban prevents businesses with more than 11 locations from opening in certain business districts such as Hayes Valley, North Beach, and Chinatown, although exemptions may be granted.
Chains like Walgreens are required to obtain conditional use permits to operate in most other locations – which requires a thorough review by the planning committee to determine the impact on the surrounding neighborhood – and sometimes the applicant requires mitigating measures.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin even proposed legislation in July that would make it difficult for a new business to replace a laundromat. The aim is to protect laundromat owners from predatory landlords and to prevent these dwindling businesses from closing further.
However, none of these measures force a company to stay open or to encourage a certain type of storefront – like a pharmacy – to take up a vacancy.
Valencia, who has over 40 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including his time with several large chains, wants to make it known that independent drugstores can compete with their chain counterparts.
Rexall was once a widespread national chain, but it was phased out in the 1970s after being sold to private investors. Some franchise locations, such as the one on Ninth Avenue and Irving Street, were allowed to continue using the name but have no connection with the former Behometh and are now independently operated.
At Rexall, Valencia offers personalized customer advice, supplies products to elderly residents in the neighborhood, carries special health products and promotes wellness coaching opportunities. He says the store has established itself in the community by developing meaningful, lasting relationships with returning customers.
“Walgreens isn’t really a competition,” he said. “We can offer special products that most chains don’t have, and we’re more agile.”
From left, pharmacist David Valencia worked with pharmacy technicians Adam Le and Marc Adriano at Rexall Drugs on October 19. (Kevin N. Hume / The Examiner)
However, these outstanding qualities can only be offered when business is up and running. This is an expensive and time consuming process that has historically given many larger retailers an advantage over smaller ones.
In the wake of the pandemic, San Francisco has already taken steps to relieve local traders: Proposition H streamlines the approval process and increases flexibility for new small businesses. Shared spaces enable companies to operate more easily in parts of public space. And Mayor London Breed backed a bill that provides $ 5 million in fee waivers, reliefs and deferrals.
Valencia and Shoman would like more support. In addition to helping individual traders, they say it reinvigorates entire trade corridors by preventing vacancies and increasing pedestrian traffic – which itself could act as a deterrent to the type of retail crime that Walgreens cited as the reason for its departure.
“There are a lot of stores that have closed during the pandemic and it affects me because I used to have some of that pedestrian traffic,” Shoman said. “If I have free business around me, it does not help me and is of no use to anyone.”
In the name of economic recovery, other potential solutions have focused more on enforcement.
Supervisor Ahsha Safai, whose district is about to close one of five Walgreens locations in Excelsior, passed a law in September that allows sheriff’s deputies to work off-duty as security guards in private companies.
This option is already made available to officers in the San Francisco Police Department, so the program would only extend the option to law enforcement in the sheriff’s office.
“If we don’t take care … we’re not going to make people feel safe going back to The City,” said Safai. “We have to take care of it. I definitely don’t want to go back to the time of over-incarceration, but this has to stop. “
As for the fixes, however, doubling enforcement isn’t seen as the best way forward by everyone, even those who acknowledge that organized retail theft continues to haunt the city.
“That’s why it’s so important to understand why they’re actually closing, and not just take their representations at face value,” said District Five Supervisor Dean Preston. “It’s hard to come up with a solution to this or other stores closing without information on why they are closing.”
Residents and elected officials alike expressed frustration with Walgreens over the wave of closings. They phrased the decision as a decision for the drugstore to leave the community and leave seniors, families and other individuals who rely on pharmacies near their homes without warning.
“It’s a neighborhood where residents, especially the elderly and other vulnerable community members, depend on having a pharmacy nearby,” Preston said of the 300 Gough St site closure Local community.”
In contrast, independent drug stores are typically close partners in the community.
“We don’t care about the lower dollar,” Shoman said. “We’re pretty empathetic when it comes to our customers.”
cgraf@sfexaminer.com
Rexall Drugs in the Sunset is operated independently. (Kevin N. Hume / The Examiner)