A woman shops for items among empty shelves inside of a Walgreens near Fourth and Market streets that is closing soon in San Francisco on Feb. 18, 2025. (Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
For years, Eileen Norman has relied on her neighborhood Walgreens at 5300 Third St. in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point. There, she picked up prescriptions for her family, who have multiple disabilities.
“We would be at that pharmacy two to three times a month to pick up necessary medications that we rely on,” she said.
Norman is among thousands of San Franciscans whose medical routines have been upended this week by the sudden closure of 11 Walgreens stores around the city — considered the latest and biggest wave of store closures the city has seen in recent years.
Which Walgreens stores have closed?
The 11 San Francisco Walgreens stores that closed this week, between Feb. 24 and 27, are located at:
The Walgreens at 5300 Third St. — the last one in Bayview-Hunters Point — closed Thursday. A previous Walgreens store, at 3801 Third St., had closed in 2019.
These Bayview-Hunters Point stores fall under District 10, represented by San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton. The other closure in his area is at 1189 Potrero Ave., located just next to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
According to a January statement from Supervisor Walton’s office, his office met with a Walgreens representative who informed them “that these closures are final, with no room for negotiation to secure an extension.”
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Residents in the Richmond District, which lost a Walgreens store in 2021, also brace for a closure at 17th and Geary Boulevard, housed in a shopping plaza. This leaves the Outer Richmond neighborhood with a lone Walgreens at 25 Point Lobos Ave.
Connie Chan, who represents the Richmond District on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, called it a “blow” to the community.
“Losing this one more Walgreens, it’s definitely a challenge for us,” she said.
Only one store that was originally slated for closure this week — at 1524 Polk St. — has remained open following a review of the store’s “current financial performance,” according to Walgreens spokesperson Marty Maloney.
Why is Walgreens closing all these stores in San Francisco?
Maloney told KQED that the company’s retail pharmacy business “is central to our go-forward business strategy” but that “increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures are weighing on our ability to cover the costs associated with rent, staffing, and supply needs.”
“It is never an easy decision to close a store,” Maloney said. “We know that our stores are important to the communities that we serve, and therefore do everything possible to improve the store performance.”
Susan Bonilla, CEO of the California Pharmacists Association, said part of the problem has to do with the increasing role of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — the “middlemen” that determine the benefit of medications through employer medical insurance plans.
“PBMs are methodically under-reimbursing any pharmacy that is not their own pharmacy on the medications, so the pharmacies are running at a deficit,” Bonilla said. “They will pay one cost to get that medication into the pharmacy. Then, the PBM will reimburse it below [this] cost of acquisition.”
This means that “on many prescriptions, grocery stores and places, like Walgreens, they are literally losing money,” Bonilla said.
In response, San Francisco State Sen. Scott Wiener has introduced legislation that would regulate PBMs in California. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed Wiener’s related bill last year, and past legislative attempts associated with PBMs have failed, too.
In 2021, Walgreens blamed “organized retail crime” for the company’s decision to close five San Francisco stores in 2021. An analysis of San Francisco Police Department data later found that other factors were likely to have also played a role, including competition from online shopping, reduced foot traffic and an oversaturation of Walgreens locations within the city.
“Maybe we cried too much last year,” James Kehoe, chief financial officer for Walgreens, said in a 2024 earnings call, admitting that the company may have overstated how much theft actually happened.
What are the impacts on communities when pharmacies close like this?
“Pharmacy deserts” are a growing problem in California and around the country, Bonilla said.
Nationally, an estimated nearly 16 million people in the U.S. live in such pharmacy deserts. According to a 2024 study that sought to define pharmacy deserts in the absence of a national map, the states with the highest number of adults living in pharmacy deserts are California, Florida and Texas — which are also states with large populations.
The study also focused on the socioeconomic characteristics of pharmacy deserts and found that the people living in them are often marginalized groups who have historically faced structural barriers to health care.
A Walgreens pharmacy, located at the intersection of High Street and MacArthur Blvd in Oakland, was also scheduled for closure. (David M. Barreda/KQED)
The people who face the greatest challenges when a neighborhood pharmacy closes are typically seniors and people with disabilities, who may have to then travel further to their nearest pharmacy, Walgreens customer Eileen Norman said. She is also the executive director of San Francisco In-Home Supportive Services Public Authority, the Medi-Cal program that helps older adults and people with disabilities to live in the community independently and offer services at home.
“It tends to be a full-time job to be someone with a disability,” Norman said — “to have to constantly manage these types of cuts in services and reconfiguration of services and bureaucratic red tape that sometimes limits people’s ability to access the services that they need.”
While Norman said she’s grateful that she has a car and can choose where to pick up her prescriptions, she’s nonetheless worried about the lack of access for folks who don’t have the same resources.
“Sometimes whatever is closest is what you’re going to have to go with, and that’s not necessarily fair,” Norman said.
Supervisor Walton has echoed these concerns, citing the closures disproportionately affecting low-income residents and highlighting the barriers that the neighborhoods in his district face to basic services.
It’s not just about prescriptions either, said Ria Rosenthal, who’s in her 80s and lives in downtown San Francisco. She said she used the now-shuttered Walgreens at 135 Powell St. as a general store and a place to build community.
Rosenthal also expressed her concern about the impacts of these closures on the stores’ staff — in particular for the friend she said has now lost her position at the Powell Street Walgreens.
“For years, I go there,” Rosenthal said. “I had just bought us lunch.”
In October, when Walgreens announced the mass closures, the company said it would “redeploy” the majority of affected workers.
If my Walgreens just closed, where do I go now for my prescriptions?
KQED reached out to Walgreens, and Maloney, the company spokesperson, provided the following list of San Francisco stores where prescriptions have automatically transferred to:
It’s nonetheless best to also call your closest open Walgreens to verify your prescriptions before making any in-person journey. You can also specify a different Walgreens pharmacy that fits your needs or opt to have your prescriptions transferred altogether to another pharmacy company.
“Our next closest Walgreens is in a neighborhood that is very small. So we’re going to make sure that we’re going to [another] facility that can take on the extra caseload,” Norman said.
If you’re a Walgreens customer, what else can you do to navigate these closures?
Bonilla urges people to consider doing business at independent pharmacies instead of big companies like Walgreens or CVS.
She said like any small business, independent pharmacies need support — but they can also foster deep relationships and provide more attention to their customers.
“You’re going to help retain the infrastructure of pharmacy as an essential part of our healthcare system,” she said.
