(no subject)

[push-stars.livejournal.com]

Wow, Score one for Mom and Pop! Apparently, it is now cheaper to get prescription drugs from a neighborhood pharmacy vrs a large chain store. click here for a recent study Does anyone have any experience with Drug stores nearby that they really like? Are there any around here? I know there is one by my place in Inman that I am going to try out, I miss having people know my name and it does'nt hurt to save a few bucks. Click here to see how a little ground work paved the way for this, maybe other communities can do stuff like this at the municipal level for their local favorites?

 

Comments

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

what is up with your formatting dude?

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

Just with regular HTML. Check your tags.

(example here uses ['s for <'s )

Click [a href="http://www.blahblah.com"]here[/a] for a recent study.

[push-stars.livejournal.com]

thanks I found the rich text button...

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[ron_newman]

I don't think Somerville has any Mom and Pop pharmacies left -- just CVS, Brooks, and Walgreens. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

I've used inman since i moved to boston 5 years ago with only one complaint in 5 years. (They filled a prescription for something that the FDA recently put out a HUGE warning about without including the HUGE warning. Of course, I gave the doc. who wrote the prescription a big talking to about writing the scrip to begin with...)

[magid.livejournal.com]

There's Skendarian Apothecary on Cambridge St. in Cambridge, though that's not particularly close to Davis. They've impressed me any number of times, so they get my business.

Plus, they've got a cool skeleton mural on the side of their building :-).

[rmd.livejournal.com]

skendarian is very cool. also, very clueful. not the kind of place to go for a bag of chips and a new notebook along with your prescription, but it's totally the place to go for when you want to talk to someone clueful about interactions with some odd medication combinations.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, totally pharmacy, none of the other stuff. There's a mini-mart next door now for your chips, at least :-)

Not only clueful, but proactive; I had one pharmacist ask me about what food I'd be eating next, since the prescription I was starting was best absorbed with some fat. I was impressed.

[ron_newman]

There used to be a couple of non-chain pharmacies in Harvard Square, but I think they've either gone out of business or become non-pharmacies. (For a while, one of them became just a soda fountain.)

Also, Kendall Drug in Kendall Square closed last year. I wish a chain pharmacy had moved in to replace it; what good is a Fidelity Investments office in a student neighborhood?

[push-stars.livejournal.com]

Is Kendall Square more of a professional, rather than community-based, square? a lot of offices and biotech firms.

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

yeah. there are 2 MIT dorms in the area, but in general, the area is dominated by offices, particularly that end of kendall.

still, i do wish there were a drug store in the area.

Sadly....

[mattdm [typekey.com] (from livejournal.com)]

This is not really a win. It just means that the large chains have strangled the little ones to the point where they don't need to use predatory pricing to compete anymore. It's pretty much the standard form -- large chain moves in, everyone thinks "wow, so much better prices than the outdated old local store", and then when the local store goes out of business, up go the prices. Right now, we're at the point where the local stores are fighting tooth and nail to not die out, and the big chains are doing so well they don't even have to care.

Re: Sadly....

[push-stars.livejournal.com]

I heard the big chains will take a loss for years in order to accomplish that. Like an invetment. It is their investment in our community. I guess this issue is about more than saving a few bucks or service with a smile, it’s about the changing face of our neighborhoods for the worse in some ways. Many of these chains are pharmacies in name only. These stores sell prescription drugs, but often as an afterthought, pegging their profits to things like beach balls, potato chips and magazines. On the other hand, neighborhood pharmacies are an essential ingredient to a community's unique flavor. They serve as a ties that bind clients to their surrounding neighborhood. Hopefully we can make this up in taxes or something. Make these chains build some parks or at least keep some trees in their parking lots.. I hope our politicians are'nt completely givning away the store here. Here is what NY is doing, Maybe they are doing something like this in mass too, I just don't know: http://www.house.gov/weiner/report031109.htm

Re: Sadly....

[ron_newman]

I agree, but in Somerville this feels like a battle already lost. I doubt anyone is going to open a brand-new independent pharmacy now, especially with a CVS coming soon to One Davis Square.

I remember when American Discount Pharmacy was here ... but I also recall it being rather poorly stocked, and not open very late in the evening.

Re: Sadly....

[push-stars.livejournal.com]

yes some of these small business really do suck ; whether pharmacy or whatever...Some are good and provide a service you can't get forever, like your local cobbler. There should be some way to protect the good guys since they add value and everyone agrees they like em. Maybe something like the historical house thing for businesses...