Editor,
CVS’s motto is “Lead with Love,” according to Karen Martin, a local agent for Boos Development, a contractor for CVS store development. Does CVS and its minions practice what that slogan implies?
CVS’s labor practices show they don’t. See this analysis of CVS’s labor and wage strategy in a Los Angeles Times article by David Lazarus, published June 26, 2014.
Current and former employees also agree that CVS doesn’t “Lead with Love.” In an August 2015 article, 24/7 Wall Street, a web-based business news outlet, reports that CVS is No. 12 on the “12 Worst Companies to Work for” in the U.S.
Read reviews of the company by current and former employees at the Glassdoor.
Do we need another CVS location in downtown Laguna Beach when there are 25 stores within 10 miles? There are other local options for pharmacy services. Pavilions is open on Sunday or drive 2.3 miles to the CVS on Coast Highway.
A second CVS store in downtown will have negative impacts on Broadway Liquor and Whole Foods (beverage and food), on Ace Laguna Hardware, (beach items and gifts), on Supercolor Imaging (photo services), on Copy and Print Center and My Laguna Office (office supplies), on Laguna Beach Toys, and on Bushards (pharmacy). These are all small businesses with established roots in our town. Do we want to see them hurt by a second CVS store?
I read CVS’s 12-point appeal stating that the Planning Commission and city staff misapplied the general plan and downtown specific plan. CVS’s appeal is an insult to the Planning Commission and city staff.
The appeal seemed to be written by a corporate attorney with no direct involvement with the city’s general plan or downtown specific plan or this project. Does the appeal foreshadow litigation if it is rejected? CVS has little to lose and much to gain if our City Council gives into fear. CVS does this in other cities and towns. Using intimidation gives CVS an opportunity to recoup the cost of work of their agents and staff. Unfortunately it often works.
No to a second CVS. One is plenty.
George Weiss, Laguna Beach
Spot on George Weiss! CVS’s parent company Caremark has a dubious past of payola to doctors to (over)prescribe only THEIR products. Shady business deals, making BILLIONS in the healthcare industry while paying low wages, and catering to Big Pharma is NOT representative of a company that Laguna Beach should add to downtown(let alone keep that ugly store next to La Sirena Grill South. CVSCaremark has it’s own distribution company for its drugs-it “sells” the drugs at a certain price, then it adds a “distribution fee” to hike the prices of prescriptive drugs, which then formulates a retail price that has been quadrupled. And everyone wonders why America pays such high costs for healthcare and drugs….
Thank God that California has George Weiss to dictate where companies should build new stores. Californians don’t need liberty and freedom. They need more NIMBYs and petty tyrants, interfering with property rights and businesses. Weiss doesn’t want to let people vote with their pocketbooks. If CVS were remotely as bad as he claims, it would not be building new stores. But his infinite wisdom prevails and the city council takes note of just a few people making very loud noises and stamping their feet. I get my prescriptions filled there and have no complaints whatsoever. But what do I and millions of other CVS customers know.
[…] Weiss wrote a letter to the editor last week that shared pertinent research and also let us know that CVS has as their motto: […]