July 31, 2008
San Francisco Bans Tobacco Sales in Drugstores
With a vote of eight to three, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has put the city on the path to becoming the first in the U.S. to ban the sale of tobacco products in drugstores.
The ordinance, which was initially proposed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, will ban the sale of tobacco in chain and independent drugstores while allowing supermarkets, mass merchants and warehouse clubs with pharmacies to continue selling the products.
Nathan Ballard, a spokesperson for Mr. Newsom, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “A pharmacy is a place you should go to get better, not to get cancer.”
Mr. Ballard said the city would look at expanding the ban after reviewing the drugstore experience. The ban, pending any legal challenges, will go into effect on Oct. 1.
Supervisors who voted against the measure argued that it unfairly penalized drugstores. “I don’t see the value in driving tobacco consumers to corner stores where they aren’t going to have access to smoking-cessation products,” said Supervisor Bevan Dufty.
Drugstore chains Rite Aid and Walgreens also objected to the ban.
“We believe this is about customer choice and the right of customers to find products in our stores,” Cheryl Slavinsky, a Rite Aid spokesperson, told the Chronicle.
San Francisco’s public health director Mitch Katz, who helped in drafting the legislation, said it made sense to start with drugstores and then expand it to other channels.
“We teach our children that supermarkets and wholesale stores are places you go to buy everything,” he said. “When it comes to pharmacies, I feel that our children and our teenagers get a different message.”
Discussion Question: What is your reaction to San Francisco’s ban on drugstore sales of tobacco products? Do you see wisdom in the decision to begin the ban in the drugstore channel? Is similar legislation likely to be drafted in other communities or is this just another legal aberration coming out of San Francisco?
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What are they thinking?! This will just drive sales from chain drugstores to gas stations or other cities. People are going to smoke who are addicted and will find the product somewhere. The beneficiaries of this move will be other outlets and outlying cities. Duh! So they’ll get the tax and sales revenue. Someone’s smoking!! Ooops–not in SF!
San Francisco is quickly becoming a laughingstock and the poster child for misguided and ill thought out government activism. There are many ways and many very good reasons to discourage smoking in our society. But a government body picking and choosing the private retail enterprises that may and may not sell tobacco (which is still legal in this country last time I checked) is obviously discriminatory and counterproductive.
One wonders, too, if Mayor Newsom ever considers the impact on international tourists who love to visit San Francisco and spend great sums of money in his fair city–but may not share his zealot views and the inconveniences they create.
Come on everyone–stop picking on our awesome elected officials here in SF. Our supes deal with the critical issues of the day here, like whether to name the sewage plant after GWB, whether to turn the zoo into an animal sanctuary, what font size to use for nutritional info on restaurant menu boards, and how to eliminate all smoking. Anything to distract the citizens from the guys urinating on every street in the financial district and aggressively panhandling tourists…they wouldn’t want to deal with that.
It would seem more logical to RESTRICT tobacco sales to drug stores, which handle other addictive dangerous drugs; and to prohibit tobacco sales in the other outlets…although that inconvenience would mobilize smokers.
But as it stands, this does seem to be discriminatory against the drug stores, and also to involve questions of who makes policy in this area; local vs. state vs. federal control over such drugs. So it’s also likely that we will see a counter-mobilization which prevents the city from going farther on this path.
My apologies to the rest of the Universe for the continued embarrassment posed by the elected officials of not only the City and County of San Francisco, but our State Officials as well. Tobacco, Firearms and Ammunition are all regulated but lawful commodities in this state. Yet San Francisco chooses to Ban them. Marijuana, on the other hand is an illegal substance, prohibited by Federal Law. The City also provides hypodermic needles so that you can more safely inject other illegal substances. That in the eyes of the City Fathers is OK. It is not so much if you smoke or shoot, it is more about what. The hypocrisy is stunning. As stated earlier, Government should focus on crime and potholes. The City spent a small fortune on litigation over a Gun ban. Now they want to take on the retail and tobacco industries?
I really don’t think San Francisco has the right to tell any licensed business what “legal” products they can and cannot sell. I believe the courts will find in favor of any drugstore that sues over this ban. Also, in light of this ban I believe the City of San Francisco should be denied the use of any public money derived from the taxation of any tobacco product. All of the tobacco revenue should be divided among other governments surrounding San Francisco.
We are in a business that sells cigarettes. In reference to that part of the business my boss always says, “Our biggest competition is the government,” which is totally the case here.
Nothing about San Francisco’s elected officials surprises me anymore. Smart? No. Unfair? Yes. Dictatorship? I’d say so…. This is a legal product that they are dictating to drug stores that they can’t sell. Maybe they should tell grocery stores that they can’t sell appetite suppressants. After all, you’re grocery stores…it’s where you buy food!
Drugstores won’t be hurt by the cigarette ban. They’ll just use the shelf space to sell something else. Maybe the SF law is the first step, and next time they’ll ban tobacco products from food stores, too. Most places that banned indoor smoking started with restaurant bans. Maybe supermarkets and other chains with cigarettes should start testing alternative uses for the space, so they’re prepared for the future. Face it, further restrictions are a much more likely direction than greater tolerance.
I live in the beautiful yet politically, philosophically, and morally twisted SF Bay Area. One never knows if they’re buying their liberal-biased newspaper from a reasonable person or from a transgender PETA member whose cause is registering Abalone as sentient beings. As Yogi said, “You could look it up.” Always trust the “Yog.”
SF’s mayor is evidence enough of the weirdness here, having recently pled guilty to an affair with a (female–one needs to be clear about that in this neighborhood) newscaster while courting his new (female) actress wife. Yes, that’s three women counting the abandoned wife, and it’s Gavin Newsom this time around instead of former mayor Willie Brown. Willie once angled to be our Governor as Gavin does currently. For perspective, as a “sanctuary city” SF recently allowed one of their “protected” illegal aliens to murder three people on their storied streets.
Do I have your attention?
Now SF is considering curbing tobacco sales, which is wonderful. In our family, we simply advised the kids to wait while the dummies smoked and died. Less competition for jobs. However, all forms of alcohol remain legal here, along with sanctuary-citified Mexican drug mules. Ben Ball got it right, as usual. This measure will not pass. Too much tobacco money greases the skids around here.
Everyone makes a great point about free trade–now if only all of you can convince all the states that don’t allow Costco to sell hard liquor to change their tune…. I want my Kirkland Vodka with my carton of smokes!
Seems like one more step down the road to serfdom. Rather than letting consumers choose whether they want to go into a smoking or non-smoking privately owned restaurant, bar, bowling alley, etc—smoking is outright banned. Now we are going to ban sales in drug stores, next gas stations—smoking in a vehicle is distracting and you might have an accident and so it goes.
The taxpayers then get stuck with the bill, either defending the new law, or paying higher taxes because of the revenue loss.
The public gets the politicians it will accept and they have accepted them.
It really is rather meaningless legislation. However, having lived in San Francisco in the past for a number of years (love the City) I can tell you the SF Board of Supervisors (or as the late great SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called them, the Board of Stupervisors) has a long history of enacting meaningless legislation.
Why is it meaningless?
1. San Francisco has small mom & pop grocery stores on nearly every corner in its neighborhoods. It actually has few pharmacies. All of these mom & pops sell cigarettes; they even compete often on price. So big deal, can’t buy a pack at a pharmacy, walk across the street to one of the grocery markets. Neighborhoods like the Sunset and Richmond (and many others) sometimes have three of four of these mom & pops on each block.
2. What’s a pharmacy? Today’s “Pharmacies” or “drug stores” really are only a small part pharmacy’s. Check out Longs, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc. Prescription drugs are only a tiny amount of such store’s revenue. Why not ban the sale of smokes at supermarkets that have pharmacies in them as well? Why not Target, Walmart? They have pharmacies as well.
3. Choice. I congratulate any retailer of any kind for not selling cigarettes. In fact, the Andronico’s chain in the Bay Area (including a store in SF) like Wegmans, recently stopped selling smokes in its stores completely. But banning a format from selling something that’s legal to sell is wrong. I’m not a right winger (in fact lifelong Dem)…but am for choice and liberty.
4. Why not ban the sale of alcohol in drug stores then? In other words, where do you draw the line?
5. Lastly, I wonder if the law would sustain a constitutional challenge. Seems to me if one wanted, one could make a pretty good restraint of trade argument for singling out drug stores for the ban. After all, we live in an age of format blurring, something most politicians don’t understand.
Incredible! There seems to be little logic behind such a biased decision, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see drug chains fight this decision; not because they necessarily want to sell tobacco products but more for the fact that it is discriminatory legislation.
How does this help smokers stop smoking or consumers dealing with second hand smoke? There is little health benefit to this decision.
It’s been like this in Ontario for at least 20 years and smoking rates have declined somewhat but not to the projected figures. Buying cigarettes in Ontario is a trip to the gas station or convenience store (and it’s not even that easy: see my recent BrainTrust Query). In the US, I can see this being a huge problem for retailers as tobacco would probably make up a decent portion of sales. Pharmacies suffered for years as smoke sales went to the little guy.
In addition to reducing traffic in the drug channel, the ban itself seems to simply interfere with commerce. Consumers who smoke will shop elsewhere. Until or unless, smoking becomes illegal, tampering with trade channels and categories is a fool’s errand.
The strangest things continue to happen in San Francisco.
This will be challenged. It will stand through the 9th Circuit Appellate Court (maybe) and then be overturned like so many other misguided San Francisco ordinances and initiatives have been in the past. As long as the people of San Francisco are willing to elect leaders who are going to put their tax dollars behind defending these ridiculous initiatives, the rest of us are going to pay for the corporations to challenge them in the form of higher prices.
Anything that makes it harder to purchase and use tobacco products is a good thing, but it’s not right to single out drugstores. Why don’t they try to stop the sales in all stores in their jurisdiction? Or attempt to make it illegal to smoke anywhere in their city? The non-smokers outweigh the smokers by a 3 to 1 margin so it could pass. Where else but in San Francisco?
Doesn’t government have something better to do than get in the way of free trade? If they start banning everything that is bad for people there will be a lot less for people to sell! The council should be worried about protecting freedom, not restricting it and doing it unfairly at that!
This is just feel good political rhetoric that is well meaning. But it’s stupid to single out drug stores. Didn’t San Francisco ban plastic bags at grocery stores, but not drug stores? Maybe they are trying to even things out for the inconvenienced grocers. After seeing all the cigarette butts in the street down by Pier 39, I hope San Francisco will simply outlaw cigarette smoking in public.
OK, so no one wants government regulation. But what exactly are drug stores, whose mission should be to help people (especially with health issues) doing selling a product that sickens and/or kills when used as intended? What happened to all this talk of taking care of the customer?
…and as someone pointed out, where do you draw the line? I’m still amazed that I can’t buy a bottle of wine on Sunday in GA and now something like this pops up? I hate cigarettes, but I should be able to buy them if I want them. Period.
There’s an old joke about the paradox of drug stores selling cigarettes…They keep smokes up by the front counter, but the sick people getting their prescriptions filled often have to walk all they way to the back of the store.
On certain issues like tobacco, bottled water, hiring, etc, San Francisco has passed some interesting legislation. While I am a strong supporter of the convenience store industry, I just don’t understand the message the city is trying to send with this legislation. C-stores, in many cases, are located right next to drug stores. At best, this is a minor inconvenience to smokers. On the flip side, it limits competition, meaning customers could end up paying more for smokes; hurts drug store sales; and sends a message to all business in the city that if they sell something lawmakers don’t like, they could end up facing similar legislation. Ben Ball makes an excellent point, silly legislation like this increases prices for all of us at a time when the focus should be controlling higher prices.
Between this and LA’s recent restrictions on fast food restaurants, it makes you wonder what kind of power trip California’s government officials are on. Of course this is discriminatory and will be challenged and reversed–hopefully quickly!
Perhaps many haven’t heard the latest; Mayor Newsom wants to issue fines of up to a $1000.00 if people don’t sort their trash properly, garbage collectors would then inspect the garbage to make sure everything is put in the right blue, black or green bins and if you don’t comply they will cancel your garbage pickup. So a household without garbage service? Where is the garbage going to end up? We are “progressive,” the rest of the country learns from our innovative policies. San Francisco likes to think it knows better than the rest of you. I am told that everyday.
Although I do not condone smoking, I also believe the anti-smoking rhetoric and regulations have gotten out of control.
I was recently in the state of Utah where hundreds of teenagers ride motorbikes on congested roads wearing neither helmets nor kidney protection which is both dangerous and stupid. But get near the entrance of a mall and you will see a sign forbidden smoking within 25 feet. If the purpose of these laws is to promote health and halt rising medical costs then something is obviously wrong. Too often the purpose of a ruling is forgotten and dangerous group-thinking replaces logic.
With that said, the so called “drugstores” have only themselves to blame for letting this situation develop. Just walk in to any CVS and you will realize what an extreme paradox the American drugstore has become. At their core, drugstores are souped up pharmacies with logical extensions of health and beauty products. Yet this makes up less than 50% of a drugstore’s square footage. The majority of today’s drugstores seem to be a blind pursuit of being a convenient alternative to the closest supermarket/generalist store. These stores are completely void of fresh fruits and vegetables and in their place are hundreds of SKUs of Frito Lay potato chips, Nestlé chocolates and Coca-Cola soft drinks. One could even hypothesize that by selling these unhealthy packaged foods the drugstores are creating a vicious (or in their case, envious) cycle of increasing bad health and growing demand for their pharmacy.
Hopefully this San Francisco ruling gives America’s drugstores a wake up call. Is CVS the best drugstore Americans can imagine? Or will the change come from elsewhere? Will a foreign drugstore like Boots or dm-drogeriemarkt, a health-oriented supermarket like Whole Foods or a beauty boutique like Kiehl’s seize the opportunity? Some attribute the success of Lowe’s hardware as bringing a feminine take on the industrial and cold Home Depot. With an aging population, what better time than now to reinvent the drugstore?
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What are they thinking?! This will just drive sales from chain drugstores to gas stations or other cities. People are going to smoke who are addicted and will find the product somewhere. The beneficiaries of this move will be other outlets and outlying cities. Duh! So they’ll get the tax and sales revenue. Someone’s smoking!! Ooops–not in SF!
San Francisco is quickly becoming a laughingstock and the poster child for misguided and ill thought out government activism. There are many ways and many very good reasons to discourage smoking in our society. But a government body picking and choosing the private retail enterprises that may and may not sell tobacco (which is still legal in this country last time I checked) is obviously discriminatory and counterproductive.
One wonders, too, if Mayor Newsom ever considers the impact on international tourists who love to visit San Francisco and spend great sums of money in his fair city–but may not share his zealot views and the inconveniences they create.
Come on everyone–stop picking on our awesome elected officials here in SF. Our supes deal with the critical issues of the day here, like whether to name the sewage plant after GWB, whether to turn the zoo into an animal sanctuary, what font size to use for nutritional info on restaurant menu boards, and how to eliminate all smoking. Anything to distract the citizens from the guys urinating on every street in the financial district and aggressively panhandling tourists…they wouldn’t want to deal with that.
It would seem more logical to RESTRICT tobacco sales to drug stores, which handle other addictive dangerous drugs; and to prohibit tobacco sales in the other outlets…although that inconvenience would mobilize smokers.
But as it stands, this does seem to be discriminatory against the drug stores, and also to involve questions of who makes policy in this area; local vs. state vs. federal control over such drugs. So it’s also likely that we will see a counter-mobilization which prevents the city from going farther on this path.
My apologies to the rest of the Universe for the continued embarrassment posed by the elected officials of not only the City and County of San Francisco, but our State Officials as well. Tobacco, Firearms and Ammunition are all regulated but lawful commodities in this state. Yet San Francisco chooses to Ban them. Marijuana, on the other hand is an illegal substance, prohibited by Federal Law. The City also provides hypodermic needles so that you can more safely inject other illegal substances. That in the eyes of the City Fathers is OK. It is not so much if you smoke or shoot, it is more about what. The hypocrisy is stunning. As stated earlier, Government should focus on crime and potholes. The City spent a small fortune on litigation over a Gun ban. Now they want to take on the retail and tobacco industries?
I really don’t think San Francisco has the right to tell any licensed business what “legal” products they can and cannot sell. I believe the courts will find in favor of any drugstore that sues over this ban. Also, in light of this ban I believe the City of San Francisco should be denied the use of any public money derived from the taxation of any tobacco product. All of the tobacco revenue should be divided among other governments surrounding San Francisco.
We are in a business that sells cigarettes. In reference to that part of the business my boss always says, “Our biggest competition is the government,” which is totally the case here.
Nothing about San Francisco’s elected officials surprises me anymore. Smart? No. Unfair? Yes. Dictatorship? I’d say so…. This is a legal product that they are dictating to drug stores that they can’t sell. Maybe they should tell grocery stores that they can’t sell appetite suppressants. After all, you’re grocery stores…it’s where you buy food!
Drugstores won’t be hurt by the cigarette ban. They’ll just use the shelf space to sell something else. Maybe the SF law is the first step, and next time they’ll ban tobacco products from food stores, too. Most places that banned indoor smoking started with restaurant bans. Maybe supermarkets and other chains with cigarettes should start testing alternative uses for the space, so they’re prepared for the future. Face it, further restrictions are a much more likely direction than greater tolerance.
I live in the beautiful yet politically, philosophically, and morally twisted SF Bay Area. One never knows if they’re buying their liberal-biased newspaper from a reasonable person or from a transgender PETA member whose cause is registering Abalone as sentient beings. As Yogi said, “You could look it up.” Always trust the “Yog.”
SF’s mayor is evidence enough of the weirdness here, having recently pled guilty to an affair with a (female–one needs to be clear about that in this neighborhood) newscaster while courting his new (female) actress wife. Yes, that’s three women counting the abandoned wife, and it’s Gavin Newsom this time around instead of former mayor Willie Brown. Willie once angled to be our Governor as Gavin does currently. For perspective, as a “sanctuary city” SF recently allowed one of their “protected” illegal aliens to murder three people on their storied streets.
Do I have your attention?
Now SF is considering curbing tobacco sales, which is wonderful. In our family, we simply advised the kids to wait while the dummies smoked and died. Less competition for jobs. However, all forms of alcohol remain legal here, along with sanctuary-citified Mexican drug mules. Ben Ball got it right, as usual. This measure will not pass. Too much tobacco money greases the skids around here.
Everyone makes a great point about free trade–now if only all of you can convince all the states that don’t allow Costco to sell hard liquor to change their tune…. I want my Kirkland Vodka with my carton of smokes!
Seems like one more step down the road to serfdom. Rather than letting consumers choose whether they want to go into a smoking or non-smoking privately owned restaurant, bar, bowling alley, etc—smoking is outright banned. Now we are going to ban sales in drug stores, next gas stations—smoking in a vehicle is distracting and you might have an accident and so it goes.
The taxpayers then get stuck with the bill, either defending the new law, or paying higher taxes because of the revenue loss.
The public gets the politicians it will accept and they have accepted them.
It really is rather meaningless legislation. However, having lived in San Francisco in the past for a number of years (love the City) I can tell you the SF Board of Supervisors (or as the late great SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called them, the Board of Stupervisors) has a long history of enacting meaningless legislation.
Why is it meaningless?
1. San Francisco has small mom & pop grocery stores on nearly every corner in its neighborhoods. It actually has few pharmacies. All of these mom & pops sell cigarettes; they even compete often on price. So big deal, can’t buy a pack at a pharmacy, walk across the street to one of the grocery markets. Neighborhoods like the Sunset and Richmond (and many others) sometimes have three of four of these mom & pops on each block.
2. What’s a pharmacy? Today’s “Pharmacies” or “drug stores” really are only a small part pharmacy’s. Check out Longs, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc. Prescription drugs are only a tiny amount of such store’s revenue. Why not ban the sale of smokes at supermarkets that have pharmacies in them as well? Why not Target, Walmart? They have pharmacies as well.
3. Choice. I congratulate any retailer of any kind for not selling cigarettes. In fact, the Andronico’s chain in the Bay Area (including a store in SF) like Wegmans, recently stopped selling smokes in its stores completely. But banning a format from selling something that’s legal to sell is wrong. I’m not a right winger (in fact lifelong Dem)…but am for choice and liberty.
4. Why not ban the sale of alcohol in drug stores then? In other words, where do you draw the line?
5. Lastly, I wonder if the law would sustain a constitutional challenge. Seems to me if one wanted, one could make a pretty good restraint of trade argument for singling out drug stores for the ban. After all, we live in an age of format blurring, something most politicians don’t understand.
Incredible! There seems to be little logic behind such a biased decision, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see drug chains fight this decision; not because they necessarily want to sell tobacco products but more for the fact that it is discriminatory legislation.
How does this help smokers stop smoking or consumers dealing with second hand smoke? There is little health benefit to this decision.
It’s been like this in Ontario for at least 20 years and smoking rates have declined somewhat but not to the projected figures. Buying cigarettes in Ontario is a trip to the gas station or convenience store (and it’s not even that easy: see my recent BrainTrust Query). In the US, I can see this being a huge problem for retailers as tobacco would probably make up a decent portion of sales. Pharmacies suffered for years as smoke sales went to the little guy.
In addition to reducing traffic in the drug channel, the ban itself seems to simply interfere with commerce. Consumers who smoke will shop elsewhere. Until or unless, smoking becomes illegal, tampering with trade channels and categories is a fool’s errand.
The strangest things continue to happen in San Francisco.
This will be challenged. It will stand through the 9th Circuit Appellate Court (maybe) and then be overturned like so many other misguided San Francisco ordinances and initiatives have been in the past. As long as the people of San Francisco are willing to elect leaders who are going to put their tax dollars behind defending these ridiculous initiatives, the rest of us are going to pay for the corporations to challenge them in the form of higher prices.
Anything that makes it harder to purchase and use tobacco products is a good thing, but it’s not right to single out drugstores. Why don’t they try to stop the sales in all stores in their jurisdiction? Or attempt to make it illegal to smoke anywhere in their city? The non-smokers outweigh the smokers by a 3 to 1 margin so it could pass. Where else but in San Francisco?
Doesn’t government have something better to do than get in the way of free trade? If they start banning everything that is bad for people there will be a lot less for people to sell! The council should be worried about protecting freedom, not restricting it and doing it unfairly at that!
This is just feel good political rhetoric that is well meaning. But it’s stupid to single out drug stores. Didn’t San Francisco ban plastic bags at grocery stores, but not drug stores? Maybe they are trying to even things out for the inconvenienced grocers. After seeing all the cigarette butts in the street down by Pier 39, I hope San Francisco will simply outlaw cigarette smoking in public.
OK, so no one wants government regulation. But what exactly are drug stores, whose mission should be to help people (especially with health issues) doing selling a product that sickens and/or kills when used as intended? What happened to all this talk of taking care of the customer?
…and as someone pointed out, where do you draw the line? I’m still amazed that I can’t buy a bottle of wine on Sunday in GA and now something like this pops up? I hate cigarettes, but I should be able to buy them if I want them. Period.
There’s an old joke about the paradox of drug stores selling cigarettes…They keep smokes up by the front counter, but the sick people getting their prescriptions filled often have to walk all they way to the back of the store.
On certain issues like tobacco, bottled water, hiring, etc, San Francisco has passed some interesting legislation. While I am a strong supporter of the convenience store industry, I just don’t understand the message the city is trying to send with this legislation. C-stores, in many cases, are located right next to drug stores. At best, this is a minor inconvenience to smokers. On the flip side, it limits competition, meaning customers could end up paying more for smokes; hurts drug store sales; and sends a message to all business in the city that if they sell something lawmakers don’t like, they could end up facing similar legislation. Ben Ball makes an excellent point, silly legislation like this increases prices for all of us at a time when the focus should be controlling higher prices.
Between this and LA’s recent restrictions on fast food restaurants, it makes you wonder what kind of power trip California’s government officials are on. Of course this is discriminatory and will be challenged and reversed–hopefully quickly!
Perhaps many haven’t heard the latest; Mayor Newsom wants to issue fines of up to a $1000.00 if people don’t sort their trash properly, garbage collectors would then inspect the garbage to make sure everything is put in the right blue, black or green bins and if you don’t comply they will cancel your garbage pickup. So a household without garbage service? Where is the garbage going to end up? We are “progressive,” the rest of the country learns from our innovative policies. San Francisco likes to think it knows better than the rest of you. I am told that everyday.
Although I do not condone smoking, I also believe the anti-smoking rhetoric and regulations have gotten out of control.
I was recently in the state of Utah where hundreds of teenagers ride motorbikes on congested roads wearing neither helmets nor kidney protection which is both dangerous and stupid. But get near the entrance of a mall and you will see a sign forbidden smoking within 25 feet. If the purpose of these laws is to promote health and halt rising medical costs then something is obviously wrong. Too often the purpose of a ruling is forgotten and dangerous group-thinking replaces logic.
With that said, the so called “drugstores” have only themselves to blame for letting this situation develop. Just walk in to any CVS and you will realize what an extreme paradox the American drugstore has become. At their core, drugstores are souped up pharmacies with logical extensions of health and beauty products. Yet this makes up less than 50% of a drugstore’s square footage. The majority of today’s drugstores seem to be a blind pursuit of being a convenient alternative to the closest supermarket/generalist store. These stores are completely void of fresh fruits and vegetables and in their place are hundreds of SKUs of Frito Lay potato chips, Nestlé chocolates and Coca-Cola soft drinks. One could even hypothesize that by selling these unhealthy packaged foods the drugstores are creating a vicious (or in their case, envious) cycle of increasing bad health and growing demand for their pharmacy.
Hopefully this San Francisco ruling gives America’s drugstores a wake up call. Is CVS the best drugstore Americans can imagine? Or will the change come from elsewhere? Will a foreign drugstore like Boots or dm-drogeriemarkt, a health-oriented supermarket like Whole Foods or a beauty boutique like Kiehl’s seize the opportunity? Some attribute the success of Lowe’s hardware as bringing a feminine take on the industrial and cold Home Depot. With an aging population, what better time than now to reinvent the drugstore?