Patch reports that CVS has bought up one of the last two independent pharmacies in Decatur, The Medicine Shoppe at 215 Clairemont Avenue, and includes a bit of reflection from the last remaining independent pharmacy – McKinney’s.

“For 17 years, I’ve known Ramiro and watched him and his family takeover that business and run it as a community asset,” said Doug Taunton, owner of McKinney’s Apothecary in Decatur. “The independent pharmacy business has really decreased over the years. Not many young pharmacists want to get into the business … and it’s so much easier to go to work for the chains.”

In-town independent pharmacies seem to slowly be going the way of the fully-stocked independent grocery, buoyed a bit longer by the larger profit-margins of drugs that are all but non-existent in the “basic needs” world of milk, toilet paper, and non-artisanal bread.  (Yes, I know, this isn’t the first time I’ve brought this up.)

I wonder if pharmacies will also soon go the way of the grocery, going higher-end to pay those in-town rents.  Isn’t there already a pharmacy on the Upper West Side of NYC that sells growlers?  (Oh alcohol, where would we community-loving in-towners be without your tasty, necessary profit-margins?)

West Ponce de Leon Ave, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Anne)

Billy sent in this picture of the front windows of Johnny’s Pizza late yesterday.

Closed for good?  Closed for renovation?  Who knows!