NY Post
A beloved Queens small business fills its last prescriptions Monday.
Many are mourning the demise of Metropolitan Pharmacy, a 40-year-old small business on Metropolitan Avenue in Kew Gardens near the Richmond Hill border, as well as its sister business, Metro Pharmacy II, in Forest Hills.
The closing of Metropolitan Pharmacy will be a great loss, residents say, because owner Ira Lisogorsky has selflessly served the neighborhood.
“I needed some medicine, but my insurance card wasn’t going through because of a technical glitch,” recalled Suzanne Hall, a Kew Gardens resident and a longtime customer.
“Ira knew how much I needed the medicine, gave it to me immediately and told me that he’d settle the insurance issue later on,” she said.
So why is Metropolitan Pharmacy shuttering?
Lisogorsky, who fills thousands of prescriptions, said he has problems with drug companies as well as regulatory and city policies.
“The city doesn’t care about us,” he said. “They look at us as a cash cow, and yet it is small businesses that made this city.” He cleans his sidewalk each day, but said “if the wind blows, suddenly I have a fine.”
The nearest pharmacy is a CVS down the hill on 126th street and you can buy candy and beer there too. Good thing we got big retail options.
16 comments:
The City is killing small businesses with high taxes and brutal regulatory enforcement. It is their sincere effort to root out the middle class from NYC.
I have mixed feelings about these mom and pop pharmacies, mainly because in the Forest Hills area, we are literally inundated with them. I normally love mom and pop shops and try to support them when I can, but if you live in Forest Hills, you know what I mean. These small pharmacies are all over, many Russian owned. There could be 3 right in the same block! And most have terrible hours. We have a new one opening up. Their hours will be Mon-Fri 9-5, closed weekends, how convenient! I feel bad for the guy in this story since he seems like an old school guy who was doing right but just can't keep up with the competition.
I used to live in that area. The nearest pharmacy is not CVS. It's Health Source Plus on 118-07 Metropolitan. They were fantastic.
Anon 3:
I thought that was a vitamin supplement store. I'll check again and revise the post.
Anon 2:
A lot of pharmacies in Queens have been corralled by the feds ranging from selling painkillers on the black market, selling fentanyl and trying to scam Medicaid.
The only reasons why a pharmacy would be beloved is if they aren't that strict about dispensing meds. Now that every prescription is electronic and controlled substances are monitored in databases and have limited or no refills, small pharmacies are no longer able to look the other way and be beloved by their customers.
One correction to the post wherein an anonymous said that these pharmacies are owned by Russians. Not so. They are owned by Russian speaking Bukharian Jews from uzbekistan that has as much common to Russians as Chinese to Eskimos
Best thing to do is leave NYC and open a pharmacy elsewhere. Maybe in a much smaller town, if you can handle it, where you can relax a little. I know of a pharmacist who's retiring and would probably sell at a decent price. Small town, low, low, taxes, lots of culture. You, sir, need a break. NYC does not appreciate its small business talent.
So the small Mom and Pop shops are closing then why is there a sudden proliferation of "Anateka" pharmacies? How do they compete with CVS? There's one right across the street from the CVS on Metro in Forest Hills?
If you want to see the real villain in pharmacy, read up on PBMs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacy_benefit_management
https://www.statnews.com/2018/08/27/pharmacy-benefit-managers-good-or-bad/
Very few business locations go for 40 years.
It seems like they had a great run and it was time to close up.
Where? What small town has this? People say this and NEVER, EVER give a specific place.
There is not "lots of culture" in these small towns. I'm not saying they are all bad but your description is a movie version of a small town.
Most small towns do not support their small businesses either because quite frankly, they are sustainable anymore. These small towns have Walmart and Dollar Tree and bunch of fast food places. The small towns that do not have this are RICH small towns where rich urban people moved to and pushed out the poor people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Best thing to do is leave NYC and open a pharmacy elsewhere. Maybe in a much smaller town, if you can handle it, where you can relax a little. I know of a pharmacist who's retiring and would probably sell at a decent price. Small town, low, low, taxes, lots of culture. You, sir, need a break. NYC does not appreciate its small business talent.
>Now that every prescription is electronic and controlled substances are monitored in databases and have limited or no refills, small pharmacies are no longer able to look the other way and be beloved by their customers.
So the endlessly failing, endlessly expensive "war on drugs" is not only murdering our youth, it's killing our small businesses too.
Ahh yes. NYC culture. Piles of human feces, people laying in their own piss, piles of garbage, bedbugs.....
But the culture!!! Sister Act II is coming to Broadway!!! It’s got Whoopie in it!!!
Shocked this guy did not take a hint and get out of New York sooner. Most people I knew started leaving in the late 90s and early 2000s. One of my best friends left NY in 2002 and never came back. There is a reason why there has been a steady stream of middle class people leaving, the negatives of being in NY as a regular middle class person outweigh the positives. The only people coming here are immigrants and even they often leave after a while too.
Queens used to be a low cost and quiet alternative to Manhattan, now its just as congested and also just as transient, most of my neighbors barely stay a year before they decide to leave.
I knew family members who complained about NYC in the 70s, sure NYC was rough then but also had many places that were nice, Eastern Queens was bucolic in the 70s, almost like Nassau County without the high taxes, a great deal, now its a heavily developed East Asian enclave with a lot of traffic, also ridiculously expensive, a tiny 800 foot 3 bedroom house in Bayside can easily go for a million dollars.
Where did your best friend go and not come back? Do you mean they were murdered?
I'm not sure where they went but so many other cities in the US have the same problems but on a smaller scale, and on top of it they are so god damn boring.
>> One of my best friends left NY in 2002 and never came back.
""You, sir, need a break. NYC does not appreciate its small business talent""
-------------------------------------------------------------
He should say F_ THIS and leave
Tell me about it, the commie bastards are now threatening to give me tickets for my own contractor truck in my own Glendale driveway. I now have to paint the van, install a side window's and register it as a private vehicle.
Parking a mile away in some lot with expensive tools inside is not an option.
The red tape, bullshit, harassment & hostility at long time private family business owners, those who's ancestors built this city, fought and died in wars is disgusting.
I may soon need to make plans also.
Post a Comment