Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

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Jeff
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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by Jeff »

Longs recently closed (and I didn't even know it was closing) their store on Irvine Blvd in Tustin.
luckysaver
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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by luckysaver »

CVS recently closed the Longs Drugs in Rancho Cucamonga (Haven and Baseline in Terra Vista) recently and put the building up for lease. As I mentioned in my RC history post, CVS operates two other stores in the city - on Haven/Church (also in Terra Vista, former Savon) and Milliken/210 Freeway (adjacent to Albertsons).

I assume the long time West Covina (serving the Eastland area since the 1960's) store might close soon. According to some papers about Eastland that I read, Longs first opened at Eastland around the time the mall opened and it was located approximately where the now closed Mervyns is. When the Avenue Shops section expanded (a couple of years after Hirams opened, later Lucky and now Albertsons-Savon), Longs moved in to that part and since then it has remained.

The other Longs store on Glendora/Cameron has been around since 1977 when the adjacent Vons opened. I don't know about the fate of that location.

luckysaver
TheQuestioner
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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by TheQuestioner »

Sad to see Longs become the latest casualty to the cancerous CVS. I still haven't forgven them for eating Peoples Drug in the D.C. Area.

Interesting to see the analysis by some here on the traditional size, range of products, and general 'targeting' of West Coast drug stores vs. east coast. Since I moved west after the death of places like Woolworth and Newberry, I don't really have a sense of how extensive five-and-dimes were here vs. the east, but it sounds like they were here but not as common. (One thing that is definitely not as common is *real* diners, I guess Denny's serves that purpose out here but I hate their food.)

I do recall many east coast drug chains having larger stores with more general merchandise in the 70's. Peoples never had huge stores, but Drug Fair and Dart Drug had some pretty big stores, with lots of toys, models, puzzles, etc. for kids, which I relly haven't seen much of in CVS or Rite Aid in many years. When I go into Longs, it's like going back in time. When Rite Aid took over Drug Fair, they seemed to be set on downsizing, and when they didn't actually reduce floro space, they just spead everything out thin, making for a sparse-feeling store. CVS likes thier cramped little stores with thin aisles, I never understood it. I am very disappointed they they took over Longs, because Longs was one of the easiest to navigate drug stores I have ever seen, and some of their older locations, like the "Big Longs" in Oakland CA near Broadway, were practically like a Zayre's or Ames. (Now *there's a retail category I have never seen out west - low-end discount store. Pic N' Save seems to be the closest thing anyone here has ever seen to Zayre/Ames/Bradlees)

For those interested, the inevitable has been formally declared for that big Longs in Oakland. I visited it the other day, and there were flyers printed up by the shopping center that outlined the upcoming changes. Apparently, the current Longs building will be demolished to make way for a new Safeway, and in the meantime the existing Safeway adjacent to the Longs will stay open until construction is finished. they also mentioned that CVS has no plans to continue offering the same range of products, and they will relocate to a space in the refurbished center (where Safeway now is) with a 19,000 odd foot store, rather than the 91,000 (!) foot one they now occupy. Seems a shame, I just don't know why CVS isn't interested in operating bigger stores. There is a market for the kind of easy in, easy out 5-10 type places, especially since most of the competition has died out. There are many people who don't want to deal with the parking, lines, and wasted time of Target or Wal-mart just to get a few odds and ends. Just as Osh picks up people who don't want to deal with the massiveness and inhumanity of Home Depot. It's like, I just want a friggin' wall mount kit for my picture frame, I don't need a giant home renovation store, with no educated help, BTW. Same principle applies here, but CVS takes "small and convenient" a little too far, with so little in stock at any given time, and cramped interiors and fewer products offered. Oh well, thanks for the good times, Longs. So long...
rich
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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by rich »

CVS likes having fairly uniform stores, although for some reason the floor plans seem to vary all over the place in same sized stores. They still sell a lot of different lines--detergent, electric odds and ends, CDs and stationary. When I need something late at night, I walk over to one of my local CVS stores and there's a 50-60% chance they will have it. When they took over Sav-on, it seemed like a good fit. the newest Sav-Ons seemed awfully CVS-like.

The idea of drug stores as emporiums was a remnant of when they were among the few stores open on Sunday. During the 60s, that changed, more rapidly in some places than others, and the drug store that also sold tvs and God knows what else became an anachronism. They hung on longer on the West Coast and chains like SavOn added bizarre lines like lumber in a few locations. Sav-On began cutting back on on odd lines back when they were part of American Stores, but held onto things like liquor which other chains, such as Walgreen had phased out (Walgreens recently announced they may return to the liquor business).

The West Coast does have different stores, but I'm not so sure its a matter of not having dime stores (they died out more quickly in some places than others in the East & Midwest) or places like Zayre. They is have the Pic-n-Save before that kind of schlock mart caught on elsewhere, but they also had things like membership discount stores, which had never caught on that much in the East. The membership idea was originally designed to create an association rather than a retail corporation to get through loopholes in the fair trade laws. But there had been stores like White Front and The Akron which weren't exactly classy. And California supermarkets never went as far as those elsewhere in terms of general merchandise. Fred Meyer's format is largely unique to the Northwest, but Meijer in the Midwest is a pretty similar concept. It's probably more a matter of someone getting the concept right where others had failed. Ohio has The Andersons which is a variation on this---you can buy everything from a cattle prod to a coffee cake at their stores which are basically gigantic country general stores that also stock things like trendy but practical Carhartt clothing.

CVS would be less annoying if they had more competition in the DC area. Rite Aid has not been able to keep up and Walgreen has been whimpier than I would have expected. The other thing that annoys me is that nothing is in the same place in any two of their stores. If they're going to go for uniformity, they should make it more helpful.
reymann
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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by reymann »

cvs is moving the longs at first & shaw in fresno in favor of a corner cvs at shaw & fresno
Jeff
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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by Jeff »

I like how they say "moving"
Dean
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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by Dean »

Visited the Highland CA Longs.

It is in the midst of the remodel to CVS.

Interesting how they removed the traditional "check-out lanes" for a long "check-out counter".

Has this always been a CVS thing? Seems like when they were in CA before...this is what they had then as well.
luckysaver
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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by luckysaver »

The longtime Longs Drugs in Eastland (West Covina) has officially changed its name to CVS Pharmacy. This store started out in the Mervyns space when the mall opened in 1957. In 1959 when the Avenue Shops behind the mall were completed, Longs moved into their current space as a co-anchor to Hiram's Supermarket (later Lucky, now a Supervalu-remodeled Albertsons-Savon).

As part of the completion of the corporate rebranding the CVS subsidiary that operates all CVS Pharmacy, Beauty360, Longs Drugs, and CVS ProCare stores in California, Garfield Beach CVS LLC, reapplied for brand new liquor licenses statewide under the new subsidiary name, Longs Drugs of California LLC. The Longs subsidiary now operates all of CVS's California stores.

When I stopped at the Eastland store last year, the shelves that once had Longs-branded products have been replaced by the family of CVS brands. The Longs weekly ad had CVS products in it. The only thing that separated CVS and Longs - in-ad coupons and pharmacy offers were not valid at Longs stores and vice-versa at CVS stores. I'm not sure if CVS will remodel that old Longs, as there are some Rite Aid stores that still sport old Thrifty/Payless interiors.

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Re: Long's Drugs being bought by CVS and will disappear by 2009

Post by Groceteria »

As we sort of keep moving away from history-related posts here, I'm going to close this one and recommend that the discussion move here, where it's more on topic, instead:

http://www.retailwatchers.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=9

Thanks,
David
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