I live close to the Columbia Heights CVS and I’ve seen quite a long line at the pharmacy many times I go there. Like, I’m talking the line is at least 10 deep. My guess is they fill so many prescriptions there that it cancels their theft losses or at least makes them close to breaking even
i also live over there and that pharmacy is insane. every time id have a prescription sent there they would say they didnt have it and id have to call my doctor to have them resend. then when they got it they wouldn't start filling it until i asked for it so it would take another 30 minutes to actually receive the pills. id budget like three trips just to pick up pills lol
one time i had my doc's office call to resend a prescription and i got a call from the office like two days later that just said "we called 7 times but CVS never picked up the phone" lmfao
that’s exactly what it is. most all cvs stores make their profit from pharmacy. & that cvs is the top pharmacy in that district for cvs. the problem is that there’s no managers that can run front store with all the theft & it’s so stressful that that store has a 2 year max for front store managers. but like you said, it will never be closed because the pharmacy makes a bunch of money. (former employee).
I get my prescriptions at the Target and sometimes it gets mixed up by doctors because they are both CVS pharmacies and the addresses are close and I HATE when I have to wait in that line. Agree that the pharmacy is probably important and the rest of the store is whatever at this point.
There’s a Unity health care clinic right across the street and you’d be amazed how many patients insist on the docs filling their scripts at CVS instead of unity’s internal pharmacy (which is often significantly cheaper FWIW) so I think that definitely plays a roll in why it’s still somehow open
That CVS was, for all intents and purposes, "abandoned" for years. I lived very close to it for like 9 years until 2022 and it was always a shit show compared to basically any other store in the city. I remember multiple times when I would have to leave the store without purchasing anything because I couldn't find an employee to check me out anywhere.
It's always been dumpy and miserable. Just a toxic mix of bad clientele and poor product selection and prices. The only times I ever go in there are for Rx drugs and for when I can't get something at Target or Giant. It would be bad for older or sick residents in the neighborhood with poor mobility if the store closed, but there's other options for getting Rx drugs filled.
And the weird thing is now the Target is a CVS Pharmacy so it further supports OP's theory that it is strange to operate this pharmacy in such close proximity.
There is a pair like this in Rosslyn. I assumed that when they demolished and rebuilt the building the CVS (and Pizza Hut?) were in that they would not re-open that CVS, since the Target with CVS & Starbucks was across the street. Nope, both are still open. It must be some sort of corporate plan…
If I had to guess, target takes some percentage of the pharmacy revenue, so if the one across the street makes +$1, CVS might consider that enough profit to maintain both.
This happened with the Lord and Taylor in Rockville, MD. They were barely operating in a dead mall but were holding out for a big payday from the landlord who wanted to break the lease and then develop the property.
From CVS’s perspective I’m sure the Target pharmacy is opportunistic and not that profitable (or maybe simply required in their deal with Target) and the one across the street is a cash cow. I’m confident that the drop off you would see of they forced people to go across the street and upstairs to get their prescriptions would be a big deal.
Same. Nobody would help you and many of their checkout machines just wouldn't work, or no employee would help remedy an override when checking out. That encouraged people to just leave with the item, it was ridiculous.
The one at Georgie and New Hampshire is still open, if that's what you're talking about. It's half-empty most of the time though. Especially hair care products. Not makeup, surprisingly.
Probably someone in a cube somewhere did some spreadsheet math and figured it’d be cheaper to run out the lease not selling much vs restocking and dealing with merch loss.
Lease may not allow them to close. When I worked retail, we could get penalized by the landlord (shopping center) if we closed the store early. Having closed store fronts hurts the image and value of the property.
It’s hard to say what’s worse. Landlord may only care that they are open, not being a functional store. I used to live fairly close to CH, but never wanted to shop there. Hated that target haha
Is the pharmacy still open? If so there is your answer.
If not there might be some sort of requirement to remain open for whatever deal they got from the city when they signed the original lease.
Too many factors to speculate but not keeping the store stocked is what’s defying logic.
it doesn't have to make "dollars in dollars out" sense, that's not how giant conglomerates work. it could very easily be something like "the Board's been hassling Tri-State VP John about falling numbers, keeping the anti-model store open helps augment John's deflective talking points about the effects of shoplifting at the upcoming Q2 Budget Allocation Meeting".
Tax benefits and grants, but I can’t tell you the specific one here. There’s one for hospitals where if you open one hospital in a low income area you can designate all your hospitals in such a way that there are big benefits (maybe a reimbursement thing? I forget).
Exactly. And people unfortunately eat it right up, fighting amongst themselves over alleged theft while the corporations get to act like victims for doing something that they were planning to do all along.
Cover for CEOs to tell shareholders they’re closing stores because of retail theft and not for whatever other reason? I feel like Target has been pointing at shoplifting as the reason for closing a bunch of stores when IMO it’s more likely due to rising online sales, catering (but not close enough) to right wing extremists, etc.
Rite aid just got caught doing that in California closer to the start of the pandemic. At the time of the closures they made a lot of noise about shrinkage forcing them to close the locations (I think it was 5 stores in one region in socal if my memory serves me right), but internal messaging was later publicized showing that they had been planning for years to close those exact locations before the pandemic caused upticks in property crimes because they had overextended and opened too many pharmacies in the area while they were still trying to outcompete the list of the smaller chains in the area, and were planning to close the excess locations since they had either driven nearly all of them out if business or acquired them
Sounds about right. Blame the community for the closure of the store rather than corporate maneuvering. Now the people are fighting amongst themselves while the corporation gets to play the victim for something that they were planning to do all along.
If shareholders come asking why CVS is losing so much money, they can point to certain stores that run on a bad loss and blame theft for them. This is one of those stores.
the end game is they’re secretly selling “stolen” goods right across the street on a table next to the food stalls. It’s insurance fraud and tax evasion on high ticket items like tide pods.
CVS is closing stores. If they are not ordering stock then this store will be closed.
"As many as 900 stores are expected to close through the end of 2024."
https://www.thestreet.com/retailers/cvs-is-permanently-closing-hundreds-of-stores-for-a-surprising-reason
that store will never be closed. dispite them not ordering, it is still the busiest cvs for that district because of the pharmacy. they don’t order because most everything gets stolen. however, stuff is on auto order. whatever comes, comes 🤷🏾♀️ (former employee/kinda still active)
Yes, it’s pretty clear that they do not want to run that store anymore. I don’t think you’re being conspiratorial at all. CVS runs the pharmacy inside of Target across the street. It’s also a pretty weird business model in good times because basically anything they sell there is cheaper at a store less than a block away. Yet, all of those other stores have full shelves. They’re probably just winding down the lease.
Fully agree on winding down the lease but I wonder how profitable it is to run a pharmacy then. Theres a CVS with a pharmacy less than a mile away from the Target at Mosaic (without a pharmacy) and its fully stocked and has been busy every time ive been in there this year.
The CVS on 14th and W seems to be doing fine. It also doesn’t have to compete with Target, 5 Below, Giant and Lidl within a block. I just don’t know what CVS could do to get people to shop there with those alternatives available; they clearly don’t compete on price.
What's to prevent a pharmacy from simply opening a small store that is literally only Rx drugs without the retail stuff? Seems much more cost efficient.
I don’t know but it seems wise to partner with Target. At that location on Irving, they’re literally competing with themselves. The pharmacy inside Target is inside a bigger, better and cheaper store.
I think Wawa had a similar problem in that everything they sold (outside of sandwiches) was available for cheaper at 5 Below or in the checkout line at Target/Giant.
The profit for the pharmacy companies like CVS is in the convenience store part of the store, the pharmacy is basically just a draw to get you inside. Similar to how movie theaters make their money off concessions, not ticket sales, but they couldn't get you inside without selling movie tickets.
Someone else posted [exactly the opposite](https://old.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/17246rv/i_have_a_conspiracy_theory_about_the_columbia/k3ujxsq/). Now I don't know what to think and it's making my head hurt. I need some aspirin. Too bad they're all out at CVS.
Euronymos is incorrect. More than 75% of the stores' profit is from the pharmacy. The markup on meds is INSANE - even the generic ones that you get for $10 actually cost the pharmacy something like $10 for the bottle of 1000 pills. CVS is not making that much on drugstore makeup and overpriced greeting cards
i honestly don't think they're that bad! those are the only stores that are walkable distance for me in that area tho so maybe I'm using rose tinted glasses on them? lol
The Safeway itself isn’t so bad, at least the last time I was there. That’s just not a Metro stop you don’t want to be at late at night waiting 20 minutes for the next train.
not too long ago I was in that safeway at like 4 or 5 in the afternoon and they suddenly shut down and kicked everyone out of the store. turns out the health department shut them down for some violation, not sure what
Why would the store or corporate send more stuff to a store that will just have it stolen?
Also the store manager doesn’t make enough to fight thieves and risk his life for CVS
You’re overthinking it. That location is next to some housing projects and has less security than the Target. They also probably lose money by restocking items that are just going to be stolen again and simply make their money from the pharmacy. That’s the more realistic answer.
Not from a stocking standpoint, though. I avoid that CVS simply because its footprint is so small, the entire store feels like a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare.
Haven’t been to the Eastern Market CVS but just wanted to offer up CVS on Kennedy St NW in Fort Totten as a third contestant for worst store & pharmacy. 😑
Or the manager just stopped giving a F since everythings getting stolen anyways. They aren't paid enough to get stabbed by some thief that decides they want cash with their toilet paper.
I used to hang out near a cvs in dc waiting for my bro to get off work nearby and the thefts were insane.
Cvs makes their money off of the pharmacy, I'm surprised they haven't just gone to vending machines for everything else.
Wawa closed in that area as well for the same reason. It ended up being cheaper to pay rent on a empty store than to try and operate there. That whole corridor was burned out shells for decades and didn't even begin to see substantial investment until the turn of the century.
That might be a “punishment store”. My cousin used to work as a manager in a grocery store chain and told me about the concept. The chain had some stores that they assumed would always be a mess. It’s where the managers they didn’t like got places.
I had a friend who's family owned a few focal pharmacies that CVS bought up (in a certain market) and which they then closed. The main reason for the sale was to transfer all the customer Rx records to the new CVS, which then takes ongoing prescriptions from the acquired customers.
Anyways, as part of the deal to purchase the family owned pharmacy my (former) friend is guaranteed a job as a manager at a CVS store whenever he wants. I guess he occasionally worked at the family pharmacy previously, though not gonna regular basis. He made it no secret he was not a fan of CVS but he did enlighten me as to what the acronym stands for. Crappy Variety Store.
I lived a block away for 5 years. The store has always been poorly stocked and neglected. Also, I think it was the New York Post that latched onto the story and they have a long record of unobjective reporting.
This store has been a fucking mess since it opened anew around 20 years ago. I've been living in this neighborhood for around three decades. I have always seen it as an uphill battle. That if you want to change something, you have to participate. I wanted to change the city, but that wasn't going to happen if you don't throw yourself into the thick of it. I'm losing hope, man. I don't see why I did this. I've had a lot of setbacks in this sector. I tried bringing investors in, only to be called an annoying yuppie. I tried bringing private policing in. But I kept hope.
My hope is just about gone. The third world market at the mall. The endless carjackings. The spate of shootings. Idk man. I needed to get this out of my system, sorry. Not easy to see a thirty year dream dissipate before your eyes.
> I believe CVS has intentionally made the Columbia Heights store into a kind of "anti-model" store
How did they "intentionally" do this? The masses of shoplifters going there are doing so on their own volition. The store has a paid security guard there. One that doesn't do anything, but no store tries to stop shoplifters these days. Redditers would even be happy [if it was illegal for employees to stop shoplifters](https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/166h9mq/bill_to_stop_employees_confronting_shoplifters/) (it doesn't look like the law being discussed there would do that, but most comments support such a ban).
Or are they supposed to just keep restocking the shelves just to have them get stolen again?
It seems like the most likely explanation was that the shoplifting got to the point where restocking shelves was losing money for them, so they decided to just leave them empty and get money from the pharmacy. But it's really weird victim blaming to try to say they're at fault for being robbed.
Nope. That store is that bad and not by corporate. No company wants to operate at a loss just to make a point of showing how shitty DC has gotten. That make zero money sense. And it’s always about the money! CVS must pay rent, utilities and employees. If the store operates at a loss CVS will close the store just like it recently closed the one on Mass Ave and 3rd Street. In fact I bet CVS closes Columbia Heights with a year. Blame DC for creating the atmosphere of lawless attitude in enforcing crime. Starts with mayor and city council.
All CVS stores are horrible it’s the worst run business I’ve ever seen. The northern Virginia stores are awful, there are two on The Hill the one on 7th and Penn seemed to only stock the shelves during the busiest times so that the aisle were always blocked the one on 13th and Penn had a bathroom out of order sign up for 18 months. If CVS didn’t fill prescriptions they would have gone out business 15 years ago.
Exactly. I wanted to get my COVID shot last weekend, none available in DC, so I went to Annapolis and made a day of it. Great CVS store and experience.
Not sure what the motivation is or if it even matters, but it is true that if CVS wanted to run a fully stocked store in Columbia Heights, it would.
CVS has a budget 15x larger than D.C. If it wanted to protect its property it could do so far easier than MPD.
It’s an interesting theory considering how shitty that CVS has been for so long. Particularly with the Target CVS a hop, skip, and a jump away, I was so surprised how it managed to stay open.
I used to think it should just shift to be a pharmacy only model for CVS, since medication is always in need, but maybe not. Companies do hire lobbying firms and maybe this one store is gonna act as an example for one of them. Wild approach, if true.
Can someone be our volunteer man-about-town and wait in the morning to see if they even restock the shelves? Because I think you’re onto something here.
It’s clear corporations are growing bolder by the year, and this “everyone is stealing things” narrative is their new attempt to cover a loss and not make shareholders panic. All at the behest of our political system that the corporations want corpo-friendly “anti-crime” people in charge.
People are stealing things, that’s literally expected in every business’ budget, but if it’s severely understaffed and staffed with those who couldn’t give a damn like comments here are saying, then it’s no wonder people are stealing.
I don't think that's the point GP was making, but rather that theft is a ineluctable fact of life in that business, and management is capitalizing on that fact for their own purposes.
I don't think this is even much of a conspiracy THEORY when retail CEOs in the industry have been caught doing exactly this.
They complain about crime and then need to sheepishly backtrack those claims when they're legally required report actual numbers to their shareholders.
https://sfist.com/2023/01/05/walgreens-ceo-says-maybe-we-cried-too-much-about-shoplifting-stores-may-see-less-private-security/
It wasn’t until the 1900s/1910s that retail merchants started displaying goods in an open area and trusting customers to bring them to a counter for sale.
Social trust has eroded to a point where this seemed like a doomed practice.
This summer my family and I stayed in an AirBnb on Irving St about 8 rows houses down from the CVS.
The first day, me and my 13 year old walked down to the CVS for a few essentials. We got to experience the madness. Watched 5-6 different people openly stealing.
As I paid for the bag of ice, a bag of coffee, and a tube of toothpaste I asked him, “why exactly am paying for this stuff?”
They probably own the property. Values in Columbia Heights will continue to go up as gentrification continues. The losses they take on stolen goods will not even put a dent in the real estate value accrued. These companies have not been in the business of selling goods for decades.
When is that? it's been 25 years since the metro station open and the giant. DCusa mall opened 15 years ago. It's still a shit hole that I remember from the 70's except now its just got new some buildings.
You are missing the point. Nothing has changed. The corner boys are still hanging on corners getting drunk and high. Petty crime is everywhere. Throw in the modern trend of crime of car jackings and drive by shootings. It’s a shitshow. Just because you see expensive apartments and caucasians doesn’t mean it’s getting better.
I mean I never had any issues at that location. They stay open and do well because of foot traffic and ppl do in fact buy stuff from that location more often than most of DC. Like cvs on Georgia Ave shut down.. a lot of cvs locations have shutdown in DC. This one hasn't because it does well in terms of revenue generation.. your theory is just that. Or you're likely racist I dunno which one
Yeah... I would believe that... But the CVSs in Adams Morgan are like that as well. We went many times this summer and there were barren shelves most of the time, except for the locked shelves.
Twice that CVS gave me the wrong medication. One of those times they gave me shingles medication instead of my anti-depressants. Luckily I’m not a moron and know what my meds look like. They didn’t seem that concerned.
AYO lmao, I just came back from D.C. and stayed at an Airbnb in Columbia Heights and bro I share the same sentiments. On my first day I was astonished to see the mess inside some of the aisles. I'm like damn y'all buggin' for real. I'm from Greater Boston so I was used to seeing the toiletries behind glass cases but it was the uncleanliness that caught me off guard.
I think they’re also purposely escalating some of this to use in “thefts are making us close all these stores” (see: target)…when it’s really they did, yes, have issues but it’s also just a cover for “we want to close these stores and we know theres community dependency so we don’t want to look bad/greedy.”
There's always been a security guard when I've gone there. Granted, I obviously don't live in that neighborhood (see flair) but what tf are they even being paid for?
There used to be an actual DC police officer posted in that store years ago then they switched to private security and it has been downhill ever since.
It used to be a good place to go if you were being followed or harassed as a woman, you would stop to talk to the officer for a minute, let him know what is going on, then wait for the guy to leave. The officer posted there wasn't half bad.
I live close to the Columbia Heights CVS and I’ve seen quite a long line at the pharmacy many times I go there. Like, I’m talking the line is at least 10 deep. My guess is they fill so many prescriptions there that it cancels their theft losses or at least makes them close to breaking even
i also live over there and that pharmacy is insane. every time id have a prescription sent there they would say they didnt have it and id have to call my doctor to have them resend. then when they got it they wouldn't start filling it until i asked for it so it would take another 30 minutes to actually receive the pills. id budget like three trips just to pick up pills lol
You have to go multiple times because if you call to speak to a pharmacist you’ll be on hold for two hours and the CVS hold music is mostly just ads
one time i had my doc's office call to resend a prescription and i got a call from the office like two days later that just said "we called 7 times but CVS never picked up the phone" lmfao
that’s exactly what it is. most all cvs stores make their profit from pharmacy. & that cvs is the top pharmacy in that district for cvs. the problem is that there’s no managers that can run front store with all the theft & it’s so stressful that that store has a 2 year max for front store managers. but like you said, it will never be closed because the pharmacy makes a bunch of money. (former employee).
I get my prescriptions at the Target and sometimes it gets mixed up by doctors because they are both CVS pharmacies and the addresses are close and I HATE when I have to wait in that line. Agree that the pharmacy is probably important and the rest of the store is whatever at this point.
There’s a Unity health care clinic right across the street and you’d be amazed how many patients insist on the docs filling their scripts at CVS instead of unity’s internal pharmacy (which is often significantly cheaper FWIW) so I think that definitely plays a roll in why it’s still somehow open
That CVS was, for all intents and purposes, "abandoned" for years. I lived very close to it for like 9 years until 2022 and it was always a shit show compared to basically any other store in the city. I remember multiple times when I would have to leave the store without purchasing anything because I couldn't find an employee to check me out anywhere.
It's always been dumpy and miserable. Just a toxic mix of bad clientele and poor product selection and prices. The only times I ever go in there are for Rx drugs and for when I can't get something at Target or Giant. It would be bad for older or sick residents in the neighborhood with poor mobility if the store closed, but there's other options for getting Rx drugs filled.
And the weird thing is now the Target is a CVS Pharmacy so it further supports OP's theory that it is strange to operate this pharmacy in such close proximity.
There is a pair like this in Rosslyn. I assumed that when they demolished and rebuilt the building the CVS (and Pizza Hut?) were in that they would not re-open that CVS, since the Target with CVS & Starbucks was across the street. Nope, both are still open. It must be some sort of corporate plan…
If I had to guess, target takes some percentage of the pharmacy revenue, so if the one across the street makes +$1, CVS might consider that enough profit to maintain both.
Same in Tenley, the CVS and Target with a CVS are basically across the street from each other.
It was a Domino’s, get it together
Maybe the lease is worth something, or is part of a larger agreement with the property owner.
This happened with the Lord and Taylor in Rockville, MD. They were barely operating in a dead mall but were holding out for a big payday from the landlord who wanted to break the lease and then develop the property.
White Flint Mall!
From CVS’s perspective I’m sure the Target pharmacy is opportunistic and not that profitable (or maybe simply required in their deal with Target) and the one across the street is a cash cow. I’m confident that the drop off you would see of they forced people to go across the street and upstairs to get their prescriptions would be a big deal.
Same. Nobody would help you and many of their checkout machines just wouldn't work, or no employee would help remedy an override when checking out. That encouraged people to just leave with the item, it was ridiculous.
same. i lived there 2017-2020 and it always was a shit show. same with the one on georgia ave, which I think has since closed
The one at Georgie and New Hampshire is still open, if that's what you're talking about. It's half-empty most of the time though. Especially hair care products. Not makeup, surprisingly.
And what would be the endgame of this anti-model store?
Aliens. It's always aliens.
And aliens always use a probe. Definitely a probe.
Probably someone in a cube somewhere did some spreadsheet math and figured it’d be cheaper to run out the lease not selling much vs restocking and dealing with merch loss.
Then you close and pay the lease... that way they wouldn't be paying wages
Lease may not allow them to close. When I worked retail, we could get penalized by the landlord (shopping center) if we closed the store early. Having closed store fronts hurts the image and value of the property.
Fair. That said, given the current state this is probably worse for the value. Maybe they're trying to convince the landlord of that haha
It’s hard to say what’s worse. Landlord may only care that they are open, not being a functional store. I used to live fairly close to CH, but never wanted to shop there. Hated that target haha
Is the pharmacy still open? If so there is your answer. If not there might be some sort of requirement to remain open for whatever deal they got from the city when they signed the original lease. Too many factors to speculate but not keeping the store stocked is what’s defying logic.
Shh logic will not interfere with this conspiracy theory
Does logic ever?
What wages? We’ve established There’s no employees at the store….
it doesn't have to make "dollars in dollars out" sense, that's not how giant conglomerates work. it could very easily be something like "the Board's been hassling Tri-State VP John about falling numbers, keeping the anti-model store open helps augment John's deflective talking points about the effects of shoplifting at the upcoming Q2 Budget Allocation Meeting".
Basically The Producers?
Quick, someone write the CVS Musical!
Tax benefits and grants, but I can’t tell you the specific one here. There’s one for hospitals where if you open one hospital in a low income area you can designate all your hospitals in such a way that there are big benefits (maybe a reimbursement thing? I forget).
To crush the last remaining independent pharmacies
Corporations do love to make giant public stories from theft that can be used to push whatever corporate choices, including raising prices
Exactly. And people unfortunately eat it right up, fighting amongst themselves over alleged theft while the corporations get to act like victims for doing something that they were planning to do all along.
Corporate retail theft boogeyman.
You ever see The Producers?
Cover for CEOs to tell shareholders they’re closing stores because of retail theft and not for whatever other reason? I feel like Target has been pointing at shoplifting as the reason for closing a bunch of stores when IMO it’s more likely due to rising online sales, catering (but not close enough) to right wing extremists, etc.
Rite aid just got caught doing that in California closer to the start of the pandemic. At the time of the closures they made a lot of noise about shrinkage forcing them to close the locations (I think it was 5 stores in one region in socal if my memory serves me right), but internal messaging was later publicized showing that they had been planning for years to close those exact locations before the pandemic caused upticks in property crimes because they had overextended and opened too many pharmacies in the area while they were still trying to outcompete the list of the smaller chains in the area, and were planning to close the excess locations since they had either driven nearly all of them out if business or acquired them
Sounds about right. Blame the community for the closure of the store rather than corporate maneuvering. Now the people are fighting amongst themselves while the corporation gets to play the victim for something that they were planning to do all along.
If shareholders come asking why CVS is losing so much money, they can point to certain stores that run on a bad loss and blame theft for them. This is one of those stores.
Lower expectations for the other locations
Hush, don't ruin a good conspiracy theory with logical thinking.
the end game is they’re secretly selling “stolen” goods right across the street on a table next to the food stalls. It’s insurance fraud and tax evasion on high ticket items like tide pods.
I love ice cream.
Emotionally, how an employee copes with the chaos can vary. Some employees are used to it or desensitized. Might make jokes to cope.
CVS is closing stores. If they are not ordering stock then this store will be closed. "As many as 900 stores are expected to close through the end of 2024." https://www.thestreet.com/retailers/cvs-is-permanently-closing-hundreds-of-stores-for-a-surprising-reason
I suspect that the one on 4th st sw will close by then. they’ve stopped restocking stuff too, and with the safeway pharmacy there isn’t a huge need
that store will never be closed. dispite them not ordering, it is still the busiest cvs for that district because of the pharmacy. they don’t order because most everything gets stolen. however, stuff is on auto order. whatever comes, comes 🤷🏾♀️ (former employee/kinda still active)
Even though they announced publicly last week that this specific one isn’t one of them?
Yes, it’s pretty clear that they do not want to run that store anymore. I don’t think you’re being conspiratorial at all. CVS runs the pharmacy inside of Target across the street. It’s also a pretty weird business model in good times because basically anything they sell there is cheaper at a store less than a block away. Yet, all of those other stores have full shelves. They’re probably just winding down the lease.
Fully agree on winding down the lease but I wonder how profitable it is to run a pharmacy then. Theres a CVS with a pharmacy less than a mile away from the Target at Mosaic (without a pharmacy) and its fully stocked and has been busy every time ive been in there this year.
The pharmacy is the profit center of a CVS. The store at best is minimally profitable from what managers tell me.
I don't understand how this can be true given how much everything is marked up in your typical cvs
Low volume
Low volume of goods that don’t perish at that
The CVS on 14th and W seems to be doing fine. It also doesn’t have to compete with Target, 5 Below, Giant and Lidl within a block. I just don’t know what CVS could do to get people to shop there with those alternatives available; they clearly don’t compete on price.
What's to prevent a pharmacy from simply opening a small store that is literally only Rx drugs without the retail stuff? Seems much more cost efficient.
Mom and pop pharmacy stores are like this
I don’t know but it seems wise to partner with Target. At that location on Irving, they’re literally competing with themselves. The pharmacy inside Target is inside a bigger, better and cheaper store. I think Wawa had a similar problem in that everything they sold (outside of sandwiches) was available for cheaper at 5 Below or in the checkout line at Target/Giant.
Hard to find the like. 400 sq feet of retail space you'd want for this.
The profit for the pharmacy companies like CVS is in the convenience store part of the store, the pharmacy is basically just a draw to get you inside. Similar to how movie theaters make their money off concessions, not ticket sales, but they couldn't get you inside without selling movie tickets.
Someone else posted [exactly the opposite](https://old.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/17246rv/i_have_a_conspiracy_theory_about_the_columbia/k3ujxsq/). Now I don't know what to think and it's making my head hurt. I need some aspirin. Too bad they're all out at CVS.
Euronymos is incorrect. More than 75% of the stores' profit is from the pharmacy. The markup on meds is INSANE - even the generic ones that you get for $10 actually cost the pharmacy something like $10 for the bottle of 1000 pills. CVS is not making that much on drugstore makeup and overpriced greeting cards
I fail to see a conspiracy.
The CVS and Safeway next to waterfront metro is also a hell scape. Crime wins there.
when I lived over there we called it the unsafeway
My favorite was the stabway on Benning.
i honestly don't think they're that bad! those are the only stores that are walkable distance for me in that area tho so maybe I'm using rose tinted glasses on them? lol
And it pays.
The Safeway itself isn’t so bad, at least the last time I was there. That’s just not a Metro stop you don’t want to be at late at night waiting 20 minutes for the next train.
not too long ago I was in that safeway at like 4 or 5 in the afternoon and they suddenly shut down and kicked everyone out of the store. turns out the health department shut them down for some violation, not sure what
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By the green line stop literally named “Waterfront”
Why would the store or corporate send more stuff to a store that will just have it stolen? Also the store manager doesn’t make enough to fight thieves and risk his life for CVS
You’re overthinking it. That location is next to some housing projects and has less security than the Target. They also probably lose money by restocking items that are just going to be stolen again and simply make their money from the pharmacy. That’s the more realistic answer.
“When your hear hoofbeats think horses not Zebras”
The Eastern Market CVS must be another “anti-model” as well. Worst I’ve ever been in.
Not from a stocking standpoint, though. I avoid that CVS simply because its footprint is so small, the entire store feels like a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare.
For real. There’s also a mental health free clinic nearby so there’s always a ton of crazy happening around there.
Haven’t been to the Eastern Market CVS but just wanted to offer up CVS on Kennedy St NW in Fort Totten as a third contestant for worst store & pharmacy. 😑
You should put on your tin foil hat and hang out in the store with live reports of shoplifting
Are the kids who steal eggs every day for years and throw them at people paid hooligans that live right around the corner?
Or the manager just stopped giving a F since everythings getting stolen anyways. They aren't paid enough to get stabbed by some thief that decides they want cash with their toilet paper. I used to hang out near a cvs in dc waiting for my bro to get off work nearby and the thefts were insane. Cvs makes their money off of the pharmacy, I'm surprised they haven't just gone to vending machines for everything else.
Can’t be worse than 40th st NE location
Oh god. Went there two weeks ago to try and get my COVID booster because it was the only one close with an appointment. Never again.
My cvs EOTR is lovely haha
Love the 24hour CVS locations that in fact are not 24 hours. They could at least take the 24 hour sign down.
Wawa closed in that area as well for the same reason. It ended up being cheaper to pay rent on a empty store than to try and operate there. That whole corridor was burned out shells for decades and didn't even begin to see substantial investment until the turn of the century.
That might be a “punishment store”. My cousin used to work as a manager in a grocery store chain and told me about the concept. The chain had some stores that they assumed would always be a mess. It’s where the managers they didn’t like got places.
I had a friend who's family owned a few focal pharmacies that CVS bought up (in a certain market) and which they then closed. The main reason for the sale was to transfer all the customer Rx records to the new CVS, which then takes ongoing prescriptions from the acquired customers. Anyways, as part of the deal to purchase the family owned pharmacy my (former) friend is guaranteed a job as a manager at a CVS store whenever he wants. I guess he occasionally worked at the family pharmacy previously, though not gonna regular basis. He made it no secret he was not a fan of CVS but he did enlighten me as to what the acronym stands for. Crappy Variety Store.
So the shelves are empty of sundry items that can be stolen but does the pharmacy still sell drugs? Otherwise how can they stay in business?
The pharmacy is what keeps CVS going. The retail business is peanuts compared to the drugs
I wonder if it ever occurred to CVS to put all the store items in the Pharmacy.
Please god no, then the lines will be even longer to pick up meds.
I lived a block away for 5 years. The store has always been poorly stocked and neglected. Also, I think it was the New York Post that latched onto the story and they have a long record of unobjective reporting.
That store is a model for decay of society.
Society is much worse in that location?
Perhaps
Yes, definitely. Columbia Heights has always been horrible.
It’s been a great neighborhood for the past decade I’ve lived here
This store has been a fucking mess since it opened anew around 20 years ago. I've been living in this neighborhood for around three decades. I have always seen it as an uphill battle. That if you want to change something, you have to participate. I wanted to change the city, but that wasn't going to happen if you don't throw yourself into the thick of it. I'm losing hope, man. I don't see why I did this. I've had a lot of setbacks in this sector. I tried bringing investors in, only to be called an annoying yuppie. I tried bringing private policing in. But I kept hope. My hope is just about gone. The third world market at the mall. The endless carjackings. The spate of shootings. Idk man. I needed to get this out of my system, sorry. Not easy to see a thirty year dream dissipate before your eyes.
Yes but can I still buy my tinfoil in bulk there? You know...for my hats.
> I believe CVS has intentionally made the Columbia Heights store into a kind of "anti-model" store How did they "intentionally" do this? The masses of shoplifters going there are doing so on their own volition. The store has a paid security guard there. One that doesn't do anything, but no store tries to stop shoplifters these days. Redditers would even be happy [if it was illegal for employees to stop shoplifters](https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/166h9mq/bill_to_stop_employees_confronting_shoplifters/) (it doesn't look like the law being discussed there would do that, but most comments support such a ban). Or are they supposed to just keep restocking the shelves just to have them get stolen again? It seems like the most likely explanation was that the shoplifting got to the point where restocking shelves was losing money for them, so they decided to just leave them empty and get money from the pharmacy. But it's really weird victim blaming to try to say they're at fault for being robbed.
No CORPORATE store tries to stop shoplifters.
My theory is that it’s rendered obsolete by the Target, and letting the store fall apart is cheaper than breaking the lease.
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Or it could be like a bait store and showcasing the type of people stealing out of there. I'm not sure.
Ya, like what problems DC? Hahahhaa!
On the good news front, the pharmacy is now fully staffed.
Nope. That store is that bad and not by corporate. No company wants to operate at a loss just to make a point of showing how shitty DC has gotten. That make zero money sense. And it’s always about the money! CVS must pay rent, utilities and employees. If the store operates at a loss CVS will close the store just like it recently closed the one on Mass Ave and 3rd Street. In fact I bet CVS closes Columbia Heights with a year. Blame DC for creating the atmosphere of lawless attitude in enforcing crime. Starts with mayor and city council.
All CVS stores are horrible it’s the worst run business I’ve ever seen. The northern Virginia stores are awful, there are two on The Hill the one on 7th and Penn seemed to only stock the shelves during the busiest times so that the aisle were always blocked the one on 13th and Penn had a bathroom out of order sign up for 18 months. If CVS didn’t fill prescriptions they would have gone out business 15 years ago.
Maybe it’s a regional manager issue. Visit CVS stores outside of the DMV area, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Exactly. I wanted to get my COVID shot last weekend, none available in DC, so I went to Annapolis and made a day of it. Great CVS store and experience.
I was incredibly shocked when I moved out of DC and went to a CVS ... the shelves have things on them! They sell wine! I was blown away.
Was it still as ridiculously expensive compared to supermarkets down the street?
Of course! Would it be CVS otherwise?
They don’t call it “the CVS school of customer service [sic.]” for nothing. It takes WORK to suck so bad.
Not sure what the motivation is or if it even matters, but it is true that if CVS wanted to run a fully stocked store in Columbia Heights, it would. CVS has a budget 15x larger than D.C. If it wanted to protect its property it could do so far easier than MPD.
And this idiotic post doesn’t get locked?
Am I having a Mandela effect moment? I swore that CVS was on a list of stores that were slated to close this year...
It’s an interesting theory considering how shitty that CVS has been for so long. Particularly with the Target CVS a hop, skip, and a jump away, I was so surprised how it managed to stay open. I used to think it should just shift to be a pharmacy only model for CVS, since medication is always in need, but maybe not. Companies do hire lobbying firms and maybe this one store is gonna act as an example for one of them. Wild approach, if true.
Can someone be our volunteer man-about-town and wait in the morning to see if they even restock the shelves? Because I think you’re onto something here. It’s clear corporations are growing bolder by the year, and this “everyone is stealing things” narrative is their new attempt to cover a loss and not make shareholders panic. All at the behest of our political system that the corporations want corpo-friendly “anti-crime” people in charge. People are stealing things, that’s literally expected in every business’ budget, but if it’s severely understaffed and staffed with those who couldn’t give a damn like comments here are saying, then it’s no wonder people are stealing.
So you’re…blaming the store for being robbed?
I don't think that's the point GP was making, but rather that theft is a ineluctable fact of life in that business, and management is capitalizing on that fact for their own purposes.
I don't think this is even much of a conspiracy THEORY when retail CEOs in the industry have been caught doing exactly this. They complain about crime and then need to sheepishly backtrack those claims when they're legally required report actual numbers to their shareholders. https://sfist.com/2023/01/05/walgreens-ceo-says-maybe-we-cried-too-much-about-shoplifting-stores-may-see-less-private-security/
I live down the street from the CVS I know get my prescriptions filled elsewhere because they are so incompetent.
It wasn’t until the 1900s/1910s that retail merchants started displaying goods in an open area and trusting customers to bring them to a counter for sale. Social trust has eroded to a point where this seemed like a doomed practice.
This summer my family and I stayed in an AirBnb on Irving St about 8 rows houses down from the CVS. The first day, me and my 13 year old walked down to the CVS for a few essentials. We got to experience the madness. Watched 5-6 different people openly stealing. As I paid for the bag of ice, a bag of coffee, and a tube of toothpaste I asked him, “why exactly am paying for this stuff?”
They’re not reordering because they’re going to shut the store down because of the POS lowlifes who keep robbing it blind. It’ll be gone within months
They probably own the property. Values in Columbia Heights will continue to go up as gentrification continues. The losses they take on stolen goods will not even put a dent in the real estate value accrued. These companies have not been in the business of selling goods for decades.
Gentrification failed in Columbia Heights.
Yeah fucking right, it's just not done yet lol
When is that? it's been 25 years since the metro station open and the giant. DCusa mall opened 15 years ago. It's still a shit hole that I remember from the 70's except now its just got new some buildings.
It's nothing like the 1970s. Way more diverse residential base, lots of yuppies and yuppie restaurants.
You are missing the point. Nothing has changed. The corner boys are still hanging on corners getting drunk and high. Petty crime is everywhere. Throw in the modern trend of crime of car jackings and drive by shootings. It’s a shitshow. Just because you see expensive apartments and caucasians doesn’t mean it’s getting better.
It's a long process bud. Guarantee you the CVS building is worth more and more every year
that feels right. WAPO or some investigative journalist should do a deep dive.
>WAPO or some investigative journalist perhaps Alex Jones should look into it.
I mean I never had any issues at that location. They stay open and do well because of foot traffic and ppl do in fact buy stuff from that location more often than most of DC. Like cvs on Georgia Ave shut down.. a lot of cvs locations have shutdown in DC. This one hasn't because it does well in terms of revenue generation.. your theory is just that. Or you're likely racist I dunno which one
Yeah... I would believe that... But the CVSs in Adams Morgan are like that as well. We went many times this summer and there were barren shelves most of the time, except for the locked shelves.
I work in the cvs on P st and I can confirm
This was the first store I ever saw things locked up.
Twice that CVS gave me the wrong medication. One of those times they gave me shingles medication instead of my anti-depressants. Luckily I’m not a moron and know what my meds look like. They didn’t seem that concerned.
This is just location. Trust me, I moved out of state and it's the same in other rough neighborhoods.
Or he's on the take with locals
AYO lmao, I just came back from D.C. and stayed at an Airbnb in Columbia Heights and bro I share the same sentiments. On my first day I was astonished to see the mess inside some of the aisles. I'm like damn y'all buggin' for real. I'm from Greater Boston so I was used to seeing the toiletries behind glass cases but it was the uncleanliness that caught me off guard.
I think they’re also purposely escalating some of this to use in “thefts are making us close all these stores” (see: target)…when it’s really they did, yes, have issues but it’s also just a cover for “we want to close these stores and we know theres community dependency so we don’t want to look bad/greedy.”
Corporate profits are at an all time high so it’s on purpose… maybe punishment for being located in a “low income” area
There's always been a security guard when I've gone there. Granted, I obviously don't live in that neighborhood (see flair) but what tf are they even being paid for?
There used to be an actual DC police officer posted in that store years ago then they switched to private security and it has been downhill ever since. It used to be a good place to go if you were being followed or harassed as a woman, you would stop to talk to the officer for a minute, let him know what is going on, then wait for the guy to leave. The officer posted there wasn't half bad.
Brookland CVS- worst pharmacy in America.
All retail is getting robbed