Retail Watchers

Internally it was announced that CVS is going to stop selling liquor in the "Health Hub" stores. I am not sure how many of these stores actually exist (there are 3 in my area- 2 are very small and ending liquor won't matter; the other is a larger former Sav-On 24 hours and ending liquor will definitely impact sales there thousands of dollars per day).

The former Longs Drugs Flagship in Walnut Creek, California is a 24 hour CVS HealthHub along with the other 24 hour CVS in Walnut Creek. Those stores have huge liquor sections that have gates to close off the liquor aisles to prevent theft.

There is another CVS HealthHub in San Ramon, California but it is not 24 hours. These are large stores. There is a smaller CVS in San Ramon that is not a HealthHub. That has some liquor and recently was remodeled.

There are 5 such locations in the capital region:

• 1771 pleasant Grove in far western Roseville (2013-ish new build)
• 2150 Club Center in north natomas (one of the last new-build Long's locations)
• 2085 Fair oaks(2014-ish new build in a center shared with a pharmacy-less raleys on the site of the old hubacher dealership,this replaced a very small pharmacy location in the Safeway anchored University Village which was an independent that Long's acquired in the late 1990's)
• 1350 Florin (May 2012 replacement for an unremodeled former Long's in the Bel Air Center that is now a California Family Fitness, Smart and Final is just across the lot)
• 5040 Laguna in elk Grove (1990-ish Payless that Rite Aid sold off to Long's in fall 1999, center shared with Bel Air)

Club Center and pleasant Grove don't current share centers with grocery tenants though the latter is across from a long planned Safeway.

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The Health Hub stores near me are all huge former Sav-on locations:

Arcadia - a former Super Safeway that was a HUGE Sav-on and CVS for years. A few years ago it downsized and Aldi moved into the former market side of the store and CVS maintains a large store there still.

Downey - a CVS so huge that it has low shelves in all aisles and you can see one end of the store to the other. What will they do with all that extra room if they get rid of liquor.

So are they going to get rid of the candy, chips, and ice cream as well?

jamcool wrote: ↑August 18th, 2022, 8:00 am So are they going to get rid of the candy, chips, and ice cream as well?

I don't see that happening.

Maybe in a 5k square foot store the ice cream goes?

Walgreens did not sell any alcohol for many years. They only started selling it again around 2010.

Perhaps stopping liquor sales will cut down on theft. CVS uses gates on the alcohol aisles in a feeble attempt to prevent theft.

Walgreens doesn't sell much refrigerated food compared to CVS. The frozen food selection at Walgreens is very small.

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑August 19th, 2022, 10:02 pm Walgreens did not sell any alcohol for many years. They only started selling it again around 2010.

Perhaps stopping liquor sales will cut down on theft. CVS uses gates on the alcohol aisles in a feeble attempt to prevent theft.

Walgreens does sell much refrigerated food compared to CVS. The frozen food selection at Walgreens is very small.

Walgreens is a very weak alcohol retailer in most stores since the stores were not designed to sell alcohol. Some of the older stores had a large space that sold alcohol with a much more extensive mix. I think there were a handfull of states where Walgreens sold alcohol through the years, it was around 2010 when they announced they would add it "wherever they could."

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑August 19th, 2022, 10:02 pm Walgreens did not sell any alcohol for many years. They only started selling it again around 2010.

Perhaps stopping liquor sales will cut down on theft. CVS uses gates on the alcohol aisles in a feeble attempt to prevent theft.

Walgreens doesn't sell much refrigerated food compared to CVS. The frozen food selection at Walgreens is very small.

Depends where you live and what the liquor laws are and how they've changed over time. Even in Chicago where Walgreens did a large liquor business for many years and dominated the drug store market, you could go a couple blocks in city neighborhoods and find a store with no liquor or one where a 1/3 of the floor space was liquor (and it was walled-off due to liquor laws). There was some variation in the suburbs, too, plus you had places like Oak Park and Evanston that were dry into the 70s and then alcohol was only sold by the glass. Many places throughout the country have local option, often by precinct, where voters can keep out liquor sales or limit them to beer and wine. All this makes it complicated for a national chain to be selling liquor, regardless of the profits. It was easier for Walgreen when they were still only in their main markets where they often were dominant--local management can navigate this better than something more regional or national. At least Walgreens has a history of selling liquor. CVS and Rite Aid started out in highly restricted environments and some of the chains they bought like Sav-On had had their liquor program bungled by previous owners.

In DC proper, Costco is probably the only non-liquor store with hard liquor. They were slow to expand in the Montgomery County suburbs (large population, relatively well-off) partly because they have very restrictive laws governing the sale of beer and wine, let alone liquor.

In Sun City (AZ) there are several Walgreens with large liquor departments. And the stores seem to be better stocked than the rest of the Phoenix stores who seem to be half empty.