Adios Walgreens
By Mitch Berg
To: Walgreens
From: Mitch Berg, Former Customer
Re: So Long, And Thanks For All The Drugs
To Whom It May Concern,
I’ve been a Walgreen’s customer for years now.
No more.
Recently, one of your pharmacists in Michigan opted not to be a victim of violent crime when two armed men charged him at 4:30AM.
Your pharmacist, Mr. Hoven, responded correctly:
Drawing his own gun, Hoven fired at the attackers and drove them off, saving not just himself but two Walgreens co-workers as well as the pharmacy’s valuable prescription drugs.
By way of saying thanks, Walgreens fired him.
Hoven, in an interview with the Benton Township Herald-Palladium, said he had acted out of fear. “The adrenaline was taking over,” he said. “You could have probably taken my pulse from my breath, because my heart was beating that much.” Only 42 seconds elapsed, start to finish.
However, Walgreens, your store has a “no weapons” policy – which says, in effect, that your superstition about gun owners is more important to you than your employees’ lives.
While I respect the rights of employers to set conditions on employment, this is an unreasonable requirement for a law-abiding, legally-permitted citizen. Legally-armed, law-abiding Americas are better Americans, better citizens, better employees and better risks, at large, than the unarmed ones (and especially the illegally-armed ones).
At any rate, until Mr. Hoven is re-hired, and restitution paid for his firing (last May), I will never spend another dime at Walgreens, and I’m going to convince as many people as I can to follow suit.
That is all.
Mitch Berg
September 19th, 2011 at 9:07 am
Thank the litigiousness of our society. These policies are in place because it is cheaper for the business to lose a few thousand dollars in cash or merchandise, than it is to fight a lawsuit filed by the criminal (or an innocent bystander, or their family in the case of a bullet going astray) about injury/wrongful death on store property. And it’s a sick society where a lawsuit filed by a criminal about injury on private property where he was committing a crime isn’t instantly laughed out of court and the criminal held responsible for all legal costs.
September 19th, 2011 at 9:29 am
the NYT weighs in on a related matter today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/opinion/packing-heat-everywhere.html?_r=1&hp
suggesting that we should be contacting our senators and letting them know how costly failure to support National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011 could be for them
September 19th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Do you know, Mitch, whether that’s a store-by-store policy set by the franchise holder, or whether it’s nation-wide from the top down?
I shop at the Walgreen’s on Lexington and Larpenteur. I’m sure they don’t have a “Guns Banned” sign so I could lawfully carry there, if I wanted to. But I don’t know if their pharmacy folks are prohibited from being armed by store policy.
I’d love to support your boycott, but I’d hate to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Think we can get anybody to FACT CHECK this for us?
.
September 19th, 2011 at 11:00 am
I don’t think I’m in favor of that one. It DOES strip away the whole “States’ rights” side of the argument
September 19th, 2011 at 11:05 am
Nate,
AFAIK, it’s part of the chain’s employment agreement. It has nothing to do with local civilian carry laws.
September 19th, 2011 at 11:11 am
CVS it is.
September 19th, 2011 at 11:18 am
Bill C, correct. I used to work in the retail business and can say that the law is on the side of the criminal. It is extremely hard to stop theft. As far as shop lifting, we were told to try to deter theives by hanging around suspects as you can’t really do anything to stop them.
And think about it….if you are dishonest enough to steal from retailers, you will be dishonest enough to hire a crooked lawyer to sue the retailer over some contrived issue.
September 19th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
I would be pretty sure that CVS, Walmart, Target, Cub, and any other chain would have simular employee policies.
The corporation probably won’t be sued for the actions of a violent druggie. However, they will be sued for any firearms mistake (or even lawful self defense) that one of their employees makes.
September 19th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Another reason for a “Stand Your Ground Bill”!! One that would also protect the owners of the store. Which is the bigger risk, that the criminal will miss his target and kill, or that the defender will inadvertently hit an innocent? I believe that history would shows that the perps kill many, many, more defenseless people, primarily on purpose.
The wolves couldn’t get out of there fast enough once the shepherd came to the aid of his fellow employees. I did enjoy watching the worthless punk in the dark sweaty drop his piece in his haste to exit. Fear of lead poisoning I suspect.
September 19th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
I have to admit, I’m a bit conflicted here.
On the one hand, CCW holders bring down crime whereever they are permitted due to their potential to make the criminals pay with their lives for what is generally a small crime given the value of what a store keeps on hand.
On the other hand I’ve worked retail in a large drug chain (not Walgreens) and the advice we were always given was – let them take what they want – it’s not enough to lose your life over trying to stop them. (In working there for nearly 3 years, our store was never robbed, although it did have a few employees caught pilfering the till.) I would also not like to be in an environment where an untrained store employee whipped out their weapon and just started firing wildly at the perps. And in the world of liability law, I can’t imagine a big chain like Walgreens would want to have even the possibility that an employee – trained or not – would start shooting as I can only imagine the lawsuit(s) filed by store patrons who upon seeing the plaintiffs lawyers Mercedes roll up catch the PTSD vapors not from the judgment proof perp, but from the CCW holding assistant manager of the billion dollar chain who shot at the perp as he was running through the store.
Coincedentally, my health insurance provider just sent a letter informing us that Walgreens will no longer be a participant in the drug coverage portion of our plan. I might not have a choice in a boycott afterall.
September 19th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Walgreens disgusts me. They bought Snyders (my pharmacy) and then closed almost all of them. Happily a CVS is going up on the site Snyder’s used to occupy.
September 20th, 2011 at 6:14 am
The Snyders near my home closed about 4 years ago roughly the same time the Mr Movies across the street closed. Both were the largest spaces in their respective strip malls. Both are still empty.