“Squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) accused Walgreens of racism after the company closed a pharmacy in her district.
Walgreens closed a store in Chicago in January 2023 and three more in March 2023; two of them in Texas and one in Florida. Last summer, the company acknowledged it would close 150 stores across the country by August of 2024.
“Walgreens is planning to close yet another pharmacy in the Massachusetts 7th, this time on Warren Street in Roxbury, a community that is 85% black and Latino,” Pressley said on the House floor. “This closure is a part of a larger trend of abandoning low-income communities like the previous closures in Mattapan and Hyde Park, both in the Massachusetts 7th. When a Walgreens leaves a neighborhood, they disrupt the entire community and they take with them baby formula, diapers, asthma inhalers, life-saving medications, and, of course, jobs.”
“These closures are not arbitrary and they are not innocent,” Pressley charged. “They are life-threatening acts of racial and economic discrimination.”
“That is why I joined with Senators Markey and Warren to demand answers from Walgreens’ CEO,” she continued. “Why was there no community input? No adequate notice to customers? And no transition resources to prevent gaps in health care? Shame on you, Walgreens. Having a website with talking points about health equity and underserved communities is not enough. Walgreens is a multi-billion-dollar corporation that needs to put their money where their mouth is and stop divesting from Black and brown communities.”
Walgreens said it would transfer patient files and prescriptions to a Walgreens roughly one mile away, while offering free same-day delivery of prescriptions for 90 days. “For non-pharmacy items, the store said it would do free same-day delivery for 90 days and waive the $35 minimum,” Boston 25 reported.
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In July 2023, at the Walgreens that reputedly had the highest theft rate in the nation, located in San Francisco, a CNN correspondent reporting on the store chaining its freezers’ doors shut personally witnessed three robberies as she conducted her report at the store.