QFC is leaving the street but 15th Ave E’s big chain pharmacy Walgreens is only temporarily closed.
Shoppers and customers hoping to have prescriptions filled found the 500-block pharmacy shuttered Saturday morning.
According to East Precinct radio updates, police were called to the store around 2AM to a break-in. It’s not clear how much damage was done beyond a smashed front glass door and what if anything was taken from the store but police were looking for a suspect wearing a dark hoodie with a white backpack and white gloves believed to have used a crowbar or a baton to bust the glass and break in. The suspect was last seen fleeing through the store’s parking lot, headed south, just before police arrived.
The Walgreens pharmacy has been a target in past heists at the store. Last April, CHS reported on a robbery at the store’s pharmacy counter involving six bottles of prescription drugs.
CHS received multiple questions about the Saturday closure as neighbors are keeping a closer than usual eye on local businesses after QFC announced it is letting go 109 employees and shuttering two Seattle stores over the city’s mandatory $4 an hour COVID-19 hazard pay.
CHS reported on the potential impact to the 15th Ave E neighborhood here including the developer who purchased the 15th Ave E block home to the QFC and plans to keep the building activated during the two years remaining on QFC’s lease.
There’s no information on when the Walgreens will reopen.
UPDATE 1:35 PM: Back open!
15th Ave E Walgreens is open again, including the pharmacy.
— Aaron Brethorst (@aaronbrethorst) February 27, 2021
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So sad what our 15th has turned into. More homeless, drug sales, and mentally ill than neighbors on a walk to go to the store. Wow, how 10 years changes an amazing street!
Seems like since the pot stores moved in.
Sad and now dangerous. It didn’t have to be this way. Imposition of two adjacent pot shops along a school pathway and in the midst of a thriving commercial street has caused dereliction on 15th. People won’t shop or do business in areas where they feel unsafe. It will be hard for 15th to come back until the pot shops and the surrounding anti social street conditions they create are addressed.
I haven’t noticed these issues around the pot shops specifically- seems the problems emanate from the homeless camp at 15th and John. I don’t observe any antisocial behavior around the pot shops down the hill. Wondering what you’re seeing and if you think it’s particular to the pot shops on 15th
This is what I see on a daily basis. Open drug dealing and consumption, public urination, threats of violence, harassment of women. It’s not necessarily the immediate pot shop customers, although there are many who flaunt the regulations the moment they leave the store, but a contingent who have decamped to be near the pot shops and what is regarded as open tolerance to substance abuse. We have an addiction crisis on our doorsteps, fueled by the concentration of pot shops in the area. Pot shops need to be everywhere or nowhere. Concentrating them, due to the planning restraints around them, has created drug corridors that didn’t exist pre the pot shops. Move this business to delivery model and shut down the stores or allow them all over. When they are in Madison Park the regulation will happen quickly.
I don’t think the people at Williams place can afford to shop at Ike’s or Rukus.
The deal is, some of the people in Williams place have AUD /SUD and are users of drugs that are not legal (heroin, meth), and a lot of what you are saying is correct, but you can’t place the blame on shops that provide a drug that is on par with alcohol that Safeway and qfc provide.
I agree that pot shops should be everywhere and normalized like liquor stores but open drug dealing won’t change if that happens because cannabis and alcohol are just the baseline of “easy” (?) addictions.
The biggest problem is that addiction is a multifaceted beast and you can’t have a one size fits all to tackling that. That’s been the biggest hurdle to actually helping addicts – thinking one way is the only way (*ahem* 12 step stuff). The 12 step way helps a small amount of people, and it does it well for those people, like 10% if I am being generous. But it doesn’t help a good majority of people who try it.
But there have been studies that prove that having better social connections and treating addicts like people who deserve respect and thoughtful care is a much more effective way to treat addiction. The problem is that we still treat addicts like scum, be it the addicts at Williams Place or the addicts (alcohol and others) that you know personally in your life, who seem like “good responsible people”.
The theives have become more brazen because they know the chances of getting arrested and convicted in Seattle are low due to policies and efforts of elected officials. Will only get worse unless we stop giving criminals a free pass.
Is SPD even trying anymore?
Maybe too busy planning their next foray to DC?
Yeah, gee, I rather not have full on fascism at the expense of Walgreens not having better security.