In the News: Are Independent Pharmacies Doomed?

••• More on the closing of Battery Park Pharmacy, which had been around for 35 years (making it the oldest business in the neighborhood): “Josh Dalton, one of the staff pharmacists at the store, explains, ‘the pricing structure is almost designed to drive small drug stores out of business. Benefits managers now force many of our old customers to receive their medications through the mail, from large corporate chain pharmacies. The patient has no choice, unless they want to pay the full price for medicine, as if they didn’t have any insurance coverage.'” Also, from J.: “The store is being cleaned out and people are pulling freebies from a pile. The rest going in a large dumpster a couple storefronts down.”) —Broadsheet

••• “Weinstein Company owes $50K for abandoned office space” at 375 Greenwich. —New York Post

••• “A Manhattan mom is suing the Department of Education for $2 million after administrators dismissed her fifth-grader’s complaints that a male student humped him while pinning him down at the playground” at the Battery Park School (P.S./I.S. 276). I’d love to know the rationale for the $2 million. —New York Post

••• “Unlike most high school freshman, Jack Greenleaf spends his weekends mixing, baking and delivering his very own homemade banana bread across lower Manhattan. ‘People love it and just keep ordering more,’ said the 14-year-old Battery Park resident, who has sold 384 loaves since he launched his ‘Bread and Monkey’ business last July. Now, the young entrepreneur will join Brooklyn’s famed outdoor food market, Smorgasburg, as the youngest vendor since its 2011 launch.” —New York Post

 

6 Comments

  1. I can’t even use Duane Reade for my prescriptions. I have to use CVS in the Target store on Greenwich.

  2. I’m another example – forced to use a mail order service for maintenance medication. What happens when we need a prescription filled urgently and we don’t have a local pharmacy?

  3. How do we get some banana bread

  4. It’s sad to see Battery park Pharmacy close…the slow shift to corporate stores seems inevitable. East of City Hall, I have been using Downtown Pharmacy on William Street for my RXs-they are amazing.

  5. Hmm, I am torn about the suing of the DOE – it is sort of like suing oneself as a tax payer. I think there must be a better way. You also don’t want a parent to become hysterical in front of their child in public or around people we don’t agree with – the kid notices how their parents handle uncomfortable situations; it was two kids and the humper clearly needs some attention to know right from wrong but the mother needs to chill out and remember there are professionals at the DOE who can work on this issue. Squeak the wheel but lay off the demand of financial gain.