25th St. Station Claims First Victim - Chestnut AID Pharmacy

The 25th Street Station development in Remington can now claim its first victim.

After serving our community for over 20 years, Chestnut AID Pharmacy's (Chestnut & 36th St.) owner Patrick Burke closed his doors yesterday.

Why did he close? He says one of the reasons is the 25th Street Station's Wal-Mart.

Burke, of Owings Mills, said a combination of too many federal regulations and the impending threat of a new Walmart at 25th Street Station combined to leave him too fatigued to continue operating the store he has owned since May 1991.

“The bottom line is that even if they don’t kill you, they hurt you enough,” Burke said about Walmart.

There may be some Wal-Mart apologists who say this isn't true - but here we have a report of a business owner saying one of the reasons he is closing his business now is because of the coming 25th St. Station Wal-Mart. Period.

So, that is one business and a handful of jobs lost to Wal-Mart.

Source.

Comments

[andrew]

Wow, I definitely believe that. The guy is closing his store a year before Walmart even opens and takes a single cent of his business away. Sounds to me like he's closing an already unprofitable business and moving on. It's easy to blame Walmart for bad business when they're right next door. But it is a little suspect to blame Walmart when, you know, it's not even built.

[Rusty Chompers]

I see no reason to believe the dude who owned this pharmacy is, as andrew suggests, a liar.

His business is struggling. He saw the writing on the wall with the Wal-Mart coming, and he decided to get out before he went bankrupt. In a way, he did the decent thing - he got out of Wal-Mart's way before he went into a lot of debt.

Seems to me the promise of a Wal-Mart can be in some cases every bit as destructive as the completed Wal-Mart. That's only hard to understand if, for some reason, you want it to be hard to understand.

If you don't understand that, it's either because you are a a Wal-Mart apologist as this post suggests or maybe you don't understand the nature of business enough to commenting on things.

This guy closed his business. He said Wal-Mart was a factor. What's not to believe?

If you're on Team Wal-Mart, just collect the first of many North Baltimore business scalps that are sure to be coming your way. But don't try to be dishonest or dense about it. If you are, you're going to have a whole lot of denying to do over the next few years.

[Mojo_Art]

I am not a Wal-mart apologist, and I have no doubt the owner is telling the truth- I'm sure Wal-mart is a factor in his decision to close. However, has anyone reading this ever shopped in that pharmacy? It was a hole in the wall. I strongly believe start-ups and local businesses are the key component in a neighborhood like Hampden, but I'm not going to shed any tears for someone who couldn't even make his store look appealing. If he had a run a better business he wouldn't need to close. I really hope something cool takes it's place and I sincerely hope I don't eat any crow a year later if the storefront remains vacant.

[andrew]

The guy is closing all three of his pharmacies. Those other two locations are not the victims of the proposed Remington Walmart, since they are in the county. He is simply reacting to the new business reality of the pharmacy industry -- small shops just don't have the bargaining power that large chains do; this isn't a bad thing, it's just the most efficient way for the industry to operate at this point in history.

Burke, the owner, has already said he's going to work at RiteAid -- which, by the way, is a large national chain pharmacy like Walmart.

Some small retail businesses just can't outlast national chains because they don't do business as efficiently. This is the "nature of business," right? It's not a bad thing; it's just how it is. If a small business cannot innovate in the face of competition from a larger business, then it will go out of business.

You can call me a member of Team Walmart if you like. I don't really care. Or you can call me a a guy who understands economics and doesn't fault businesses for offering consumers better prices for identical products.

I don't expect that the better businesses in North Baltimore will die out because of Walmart. They will survive because the owners will find new niches in the marketplace and offer new products and services to consumers. Those that aren't willing to do that will simply close their doors.