PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A Philadelphia City Council committee heard testimony last week about the rising threat to independent pharmacies in the city because of looting and vandalism.
The hearing was held over concerns that big chain-store closures, including Rite Aid and Walgreens, could leave neighborhoods without pharmacies.
Rob Frankel of the Philadelphia Association of Retail Druggists says that sends a big signal.
“If the big companies like Rite Aid can’t do it, how can the little pharmacies in Philadelphia survive?”
Sun Ray Drugs, at the corner of Kensington and Allegheny avenues, is one of the few pharmacies left in Kensington. Frankel says, some days, it has trouble opening.
“Two or three homeless people camped out in front of their pharmacy, they were unable to get past those people to get to their gate to open,” Frankel said.
Frankel says Sun Ray owns about 20 stores in and around Philadelphia, many in challenging neighborhoods, but they’re facing the threat of closure because insurance companies are dropping their policies after repeated break-ins and damage, citing about 39 incidents of riot and looting in the last two years.
The small chain’s owner, Brad Tabac, says he’s at his wit’s end.
“Our biggest challenge right now is all of the vandalisms that have occurred and several of our stores have been totally gutted,” he explained. “Other stores have just had break-ins where things were broken, stolen. It runs the gamut.
“We have alarm systems. We have grates in front of our windows. We’ve done everything we can possibly do to protect ourselves.”
Tabac and Frankel asked Council members for better protection and a quicker police response to incidents. Public Health and Human Services Committee Chair Cindy Bass promised to work on it.