By Michael McDowell
The Upper West Side is experiencing an epidemic of empty storefronts. But in the past year, a new trend has emerged: essential hubs like pharmacies and supermarkets are cutting back on hours.
The CVS Pharmacy at Amsterdam and 96th Street, which was previously open 24/7, now closes at midnight.
“It was a corporate level decision,” an employee explained. “It’s the same thing with hours. They can cut you in half one week, and you might have full hours another week,” the employee shrugged.
Nearby locations, such as a store at Broadway and 92nd Street, are open 24/7, the employee assured the Rag.
CVS has not responded to a media inquiry.
A few blocks away, a Duane Reade at Broadway and 102nd Street, previously open 24/7, now closes at midnight.
“Occasionally we change the hours of operations at our locations to continue best serving the needs of the community,” a spokeswoman for Walgreen Co., which owns Duane Reade, told the Rag.
A manager on site had more to say.
“Theft is a huge problem, a huge problem,” she shook her head, with a nod toward two police officers in uniform, stationed near the checkout stations.
“And we’re not getting a lot of sales overnight,” she added.
Deputy Inspector Timothy Malin, of the 20th Precinct, and Deputy Inspector Seth Lynch, of the 24th Precinct, agree that theft is a problem, and not just after midnight.
“I’d say it is a 24/7 problem,” Malin wrote, in an email.
“However, there are definitely some thieves that prefer the overnight. In particular, we have some guys that consistently steal cases of beer from 4 Amsterdam (Duane Reade) during the midnight shift,” Malin continued, referring to a location at 59th Street.
However, it’s unlikely that theft alone has led to the cutbacks, Malin and Lynch agree.
“I was speaking with the regional loss prevention director from Walgreens a week ago, and we spoke briefly about the closing of the Duane Reade at 325 Columbus. Of all my Duane Reade stores, this one [had] the lowest incidents of theft. However, the site simply was not profitable for the company,” Malin wrote.
Although the Fairway at Broadway and 74th Street is open 24/7, both of the Upper West Side’s Gristedes—at Broadway and 103rd Street and Columbus and 84th Street—now close at midnight.
“Sales went down for midnight to 6 a.m.,” said John Catsimatidis, CEO of Gristedes Foods and the Red Apple Group.
“But don’t forget, when the state increased the minimum wage, it took almost every retailer into the dumpster. Everybody says they want workers to get paid more, so who pays for it? People are tiptoeing through the tulips,” he said. Catsimatidis has been operating on the Upper West Side since he opened his first store in 1971 on 99th Street. He’s also been involved in politics, running for mayor in 2013 and losing in the Republican primary.
Catsimatidis refers to the Minimum Wage Act, which required so-called “large employers”—businesses who employ eleven or more employees, tipped food service workers excepted—to pay New York City employees at least $15.00 an hour as of December 31, 2018.
“[When that happened], you had to look for places to save,” Catsimatidis said. “Like the amount of people employed.”
Gristedes let go of 100 employees as a result of the minimum wage increase, according to Catsimatidis.
Although some politicians—notably Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer—are fighting to keep supermarkets open, Catsimatidis argues that many are making it more difficult for grocers and other retailers to operate.
“The City Council only knows how to increase things,” he said. “For example, they create congestion, and then charge you for congestion pricing. None of the legislators look at the city or the state as a business. They take a problem, and pass it on to the taxpayer.”
Congestion pricing was included in the New York state budget, and is scheduled to be implemented in 2021. It’s an unusual analogue to the minimum wage, but plays into his larger argument about regulation making it harder for small businesses.
“It’s very sad,” Catsimatidis said. “We’ve been funding our supermarket operation, and anybody else would have closed it. Anybody else. But some of our employees have worked here for 30 years, 40 years!”
Catsimatidis paused.
“Tell me, how badly are retailers doing? How many have gone bankrupt? How many supermarkets and restaurants?”
On a recent late night visit to one of the remaining 24/7 stores, a few customers perused quiet aisles. Cashiers scanned their phones.
“I got six hours this week,” one employee said to another. “Only fifteen last week.”
Her colleague was busy restocking a shelf. “No surprises there,” he sighed.
It appears that the Minimum Wage Act is causing employees to either lose their jobs or have their hours cut back.
It is also causing retailers – many of whom were already struggling even before the increase in minimum wages – to close early as it is not profitable to keep their stores open during off peak hours with wages being so high.
Another example of brilliant liberal policies!
Sherman – what did you read in the article that leads you to believe there’s any kind of causal relationship between the minimum wage and these stores closing or reducing their hours?
I usually tend to disagree with Sherman but it is really simple math. If it was costing you $8-10 an hour per employee to stay open overnight and now it costs $15, it has suddenly become a lot more expensive to be open overnight. So if it wasn’t very profitable to begin with, your profits are now gone. So why bother staying open – businesses are there to make money, not to charitably keep people employed.
Disappointing that this story relies on Catsimatidis, a frustrated would-be Republican elected official who only speaks out of self-interest. Another POV would be helpful.
No we want another DeBlasio disaster. John is a business man who has many employees and knows what it costs to live in nyc and what the retailers plights are.. Democrat or Republican whats the difference. Nyc needs to be fixed.
You’re 100% correct.
The WSR should have interviewed someone who lost their job because of cutbacks due to increase in minimum wage.
NYC becoming an increasingly expensive place to live and a playground for the rich butting up against the city’s liberal values and its persistent need for low-cost labor. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out on the UWS over the next 5 to 10 years.
John Catsimatidis is a multi-billionaire who can well afford to pay his employees $15/hr. Besides owning supermarket chains, he is a real estates developer and owns luxury buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The main reason for so many empty storefronts is the exorbitant rents charged by landlords like Catsimatidis.
What’s preventing you from owning businesses and real estate that offers lower prices and rents?
He also owns United Metro Energy, a fossil fuel distribution company that is a subsidiary of Red Apple Group.
It is disappointing that WSR would post an interview with a billionaire Republican mega-donor without speaking to any economists or labor leaders about this complicated issue. The idea that wage stagnation is the best answer to unemployment is absurd, insulting, and false. The real takeaway from these closures is that the erosion of labor rights and union power in New York has increased economic inequality and destabilized the lives of thousands of workers, all to enrich a few wealthy executives at the top.
Luke – spoken like a true “progressive”. No doubt you’re in academia or work in the public sector/non-profit…where you don’t need to make a profit. You don’t even pay for yourself…the private sector does that, through taxes/contributions. And enough about the fossil fuel BS already.
Catsimedes is running a business empire, not a philanthropy.
If people are willing to work for the wages he is offering them and willing to pay the rents he is asking then he is not doing anything wrong or unethical.
“If you can get away with it than it’s not unethical” is not a standard of ethics I’d prefer to live under…
Businesses don’t close because they have to pay labor fairly. Businesses close because they have a poor model. I buy very little from Gristedes because of the price gouging. Though I am in the store semi-regularly. And I don’t mean slightly higher prices because it’s a local business, it’s blatant gouging. And of course at the end of the day, these businesses are going down due to online shopping, plain and simple. But let’s face it, Gristedes has never been held up as a bastion of quality. CVS also exponential gouging, the only way to shop there is if you get the ExtraCare card discounts that sometimes bring prices to your favor.
Which lie are we supposed to believe, Catsimatidis? That unemployment is at a 50 low, or more people are unemployed because of the Minimum Wage hike?
Pro Tip: Propaganda is more believable when it doesn’t blatantly contradict itself.
I think we are at a 59 yearunemoloyment low.
But the unemployment rate counts people who are looking for a job. It does not count underemployed people or people who have stopped looking
It figures that Catsimatidis would blame the Minimum Wage Act, since has has a history of paying substandard wages to his employees. I stopped shopping at Gristedes a long time ago, and will walk 20 blocks in either direction to avoid having to shop there in an emergency, even. His stores are filthy and overpriced, yet he still complains about paying a livable wage, just so he can continue to line his own pockets. Disgusting.
I generally am not a fan of Catsimidis but he makes a fair point. He is running a business, not a charity. If it is not economically efficient for him to keep the store open overnight, he is under no obligation to do so, nor are any of the other stores mentioned. Theoretically these people can be doing other tasks that might be harder to do in the daytime when the store is crowded, but clearly the math doesn’t work.
And I think he is 100% correct that the new minimum wage doesn’t help. If you are paying someone to stand around and largely do nothing, better to be paying them $10 an hour than $15. I am all for some form of minimum wage but this huge bump was not well thought out, and it has clearly shocked the market in unintended ways. There should be a minimum wage in place, but supply and demand also matters.
Idiot leftists who don’t understand economics!
Karen, surely you can make your point, whatever it is, without name calling. Or, maybe not. I guess your president is providing a great example that name calling is a good tactic, especially when you have no substance to rely on.
Gotta love the irony of $15 minimum wage leading to layoffs.
Obviously raising the minimum wage impacts business profits. But where you stand depends on where you sit, doesn’t it?
Absolutely nothing personal against Casimatidis. But if what he says is a valid opinion, let me offer an equivalent take, just from another perspective:
“Business leadership and management only knows how to cut things,” he said. “For example, they take a new law passed to improve the economic viability of working class people whom they can’t run a business without, and then respond by firing those people and reducing service to customers. None of these so called “leaders” look at their business as a service where profit is an enabler instead of the goal. They take a profit situation, and make anyone else pay it except for themselves.”
Hey John – how about cutting the pay of management, as well as your own? Didn’t think so…queue self-interested rationalizations in 3, 2, 1…
Right-o. businesses fail if they don’t actually develop their business. Let’s all remember that these large minimum wage hikes came after decades of not raising wages with inflation. So for all that time stingy owners were making extra off the backs of underpaid workers. While enjoying that sweet ride, they should have set up a buffer account for when justice came to roost.
And yes catching up the wages suddenly does shake things up in the short term, but will settle out just fine for everyone running a decent business in the long run.
Maybe it’s only liberals who understand the complexities of economics? Lazy business and lopping off corners that can’t be cut is a little too simplistic.
The CVS store on 92nd and Broadway might be open 24/7 – but the Pharmacy dept isn’t.
It’s a shame you allow John Castimatidis to use your newsite as a platform to campaign against a fair minimum wage and make the claim that he had to cut 100 employees as a result of the $15/hour wage. That is a smoke screen and a political statement that you allow to go unchallenged. Then there is his ridiculous statement about the City Council being responsible for congestion and then putting on a congestion charge. Both parts of that statement are flat out wrong. Writing that this specious argument “plays into his larger argument about regulations making it harder for small business” is an editorial comment by you that doesn’t belong in this story.
Good journalism would have called for you to include a different point of view. You could have gotten one from any of a number of city officials or more responsible business owners.
The community relies on you for good information on what’s happening in our neighborhood and I, for one, appreciate what you do — most of the time. But when you let someone use your site for making unchallenged and incorrect political statements you are not doing a service to the community.
I can’t understand why anyone would shop at Gristedes. Overpriced and below mediocre.
best air conditioning in the summer
Yes John is right. Large chains might be able to manipulate their staff to afford $15.
Horay I’m making $15 an hour I used to make 14 and work 40 hrs and make $560.09 a week sometimes even overtime. Now I’m making $15 and only working 21 hrs and making $315.00 week.
Thank you for raising minimum wage.
Please run for Mayor again.
“The City Council only knows how to increase things,” he said. “For example, they create congestion, and then charge you for congestion pricing. None of the legislators look at the city or the state as a business. They take a problem, and pass it on to the taxpayer.”
Is that exactly like how a business works, they take a costs and pass it on to the tax payer. Running the city like a business is a horrible idea.
how does minimum wage–or midnight closings–create uncertainty about how many hour you’ll work in any given week?
Thank you, WS Rag, for the story.
The commanders of the 20 and 24 precincts agree that theft is a problem, but what they are NOT explaining is why their officers will no longer file reports or make any attempt to catch thieves. Why? they are under orders to keep the myth of “crime is dropping” alive. How do you do that? By not reporting crimes in the first place!! Welcome to New York, 2019.
One of the rare times we hear a conservatives point of view in the WSR and all the liberal snowflakes are triggered!! It’s laughable they are demanding equal time when their viewpoints are represented 99% of the time. Poor babies. They’re so busy reading the NYTs and watching CNN and MSNBC they’re not used to hearing hard, cold facts, like the $15 min wage has eliminated jobs all over the country. And they ignore the fact that the cops don’t even bother to go after shoplifters anymore due to our disgusting far-Left Mayor and the NYC Politburo. No cash bail in 2020! God help us all!!
Gary,
Putting aside your childish name calling and venom, it is not surprising that your “cold hard facts” are all wrong. No state in the country has a $15/hour minimum wage, not even NY. Many are as low as $7.25. https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/minimum-wage-by-state
Second, the city’s minimum wage is set on a state-level and not by the mayor, or as you like to call him, “the disgusting far-Left Mayor.” (Sounds like you’re taking pointers on your vocabulary from the eloquent POTUS–couldn’t find a better model for you!)
Finally, what is your support that: “cops don’t even bother to go after shoplifters anymore due to our disgusting far-Left Mayor and the NYC Politburo?” None? Didn’t think so.
Teddy,
If you could manage to stop mistaking passion for venom, you might be able to focus on what I actually said, not what you thought you read. I said the $15 min wage has eliminated jobs all over the country. I NEVER said any state in the country had a 15 min wage. I was obviously referring to those places that have adopted a $15.00 min wage. New York City: A $15 minimum wage went into effect in 2018.
Seattle: As of 2019, the minimum wage for large employers (those with more than 500 employees) is $16; it is $15 for smaller employers.
San Francisco: A $15 minimum wage went into effect in July 2018; the minimum wage rose to $15.59 in July 2019.
Los Angeles: The current minimum wage is $14.25; it will rise to $15 in July 2020.
All of these cities have seen smaller employers lay of workers and/or shorten their work weeks or, worse, go out of business. I never said our Dear Leader DeBlasio set the wage, but of course he supports it. Regarding referring to him as our “disgusting, far-Left Mayor: he is far-left, so that’s a fact. I find his play for pay, complete uselessness on dealing with the homeless and lack of respect for cops, plus his far-left policies, to be, indeed, disgusting. Regarding my support that cops don’t go after shoplifters: they have told me that themselves! And they get their marching orders from the PC, who gets his orders from the Mayor. Also, ask any drug store employee. These stores can’t afford to hire security guards and even if they do they are not armed. Theft is through the roof over the last year because the Mayor and City Council are ridiculously soft on crime. They keep telling us crime is down. Really? Tell that to the parents of the 18 year old girl murdered in Morningside Park because she had the audacity to walk alone at 5pm!! NYC, like SF, LA, Chicago,Baltimore, etc is turning into a cesspool due to liberal Democrats being in complete control of NYC and NYS. And I hope all the venom and garbage that comes out of the mouths of Democrats and Hollywood celebs when they trash President Trump and Republicans upset you as much as I did. I’m guessing not.
Gary,
All I can say about your reply is that I’m not upset. It’s more like I’ve become inured, sadly so, to that fact that folks like you can justify name-calling by calling it “passion,” fill an email with more falsehoods (three or four major cities, mostly on the west coast, is not all over the country), and claim that NYC and NYS just started to become “cesspools” when the democrats took control of the state senate this year. I guess your leader is doing his job; he has a lot of parrots, who do seem very “passionate”!
Sheesh.
Here’s what New York City itself says:
“The minimum wage in New York City is $15.00 per hour. The New York State Department of Labor oversees wage regulations in New York State. Businesses employing people in New York State should be aware of wage requirements and regulations.
“In New York City, the minimum wage is $13.50 per hour for businesses with less than 10 employees, and $15.00 per hour for businesses with more than 11 employees. After December 31, 2019, all employees in New York City must be paid at least $15.00 per hour. Outside New York City the minimum wage is $11.10 per hour.”
https://www1.nyc.gov/nycbusiness/description/wage-regulations-in-new-york-state
Next question?
Mimimum wage for most of NYS will hit $15/hr. by end of 2021.
https://auburnpub.com/blogs/eye_on_ny/ny-minimum-wage-next-phase-of-pay-hike-takes-effect/article_75e16669-e24b-516b-b3b2-9cdfb9060708.html
Pay doesn’t eliminate jobs, bad or outdated business does. And really this is not news, sad that it has to be said.
sad very sad!
Theft and the $15 minimum wage are kind of a sideshow when it comes to this broad conversation. The core reality when we’re talking about 24/7 business on the Upper West Side is that this neighborhood is increasingly lacking the kind of late-night atmosphere that would support a wide range of 24/7 businesses.
Let’s start here: community board meetings on the UWS actively discourage late-night hours for restaurants and bars, which decreases the number of people who are out or traveling to the neighborhood past midnight. So often am I seeing restaurants on the UWS restricted to midnight during the week, and maybe 2 a.m. on weekends, when they would be granted 4 a.m. daily just across the park on the UES or almost anywhere else in Manhattan. We can’t demand total quiet at night and still expect the convenience of 24/7 retailers.
Then taking the specific businesses here, CVS and other drugstores have both oversaturated the market and just generally are becoming less appealing for the average consumer. It’s not just a 24/7 issue with them, it’s that they’re struggling in general and cutting hours is one way to cut back.
And then Gristedes and Catsimatidis. Let’s be real here, Gristedes has a pricing model that is antagonistic to our communities. And their shelves are too often stocked with expired produce or items that are past sell-by or best-by dates. It’s particularly a problem for our older neighbors who cannot walk an extra mile to and from a better option. Even if it was open 24/7 I and many people I know would still prefer not to shop there. As Trader Joe’s and other high-quality grocers move into the city, Gristedes will continue to decline. Rather than complaining about the minimum wage, I’d love to hear Catsimatidis talk about how his grocery store could be a friendlier, more pleasant presence in our neighborhoods where we actually *want* to shop at rather than the last resort.
— “Gristedes has a pricing model that is antagonistic to our communities.”
That model is called “capitalism”, where each business tries to make as much money as it can. The business can, and will, serve the community so long as there is financial return to the business for doing so.
On the other hand, the system that puts communities ahead of individual profit is called “socialism”. Businesses serve the communities regardless of the cost of doing so, even if there is no financial return; as a result, the businesses must be supported by funding from other sources (usually government channeling taxes collected from the same communities).
Which model do you prefer?
“That model is called “capitalism”, where each business tries to make as much money as it can. The business can, and will, serve the community so long as there is financial return to the business for doing so.”
If the business refuses to take the community’s interests into account, then the community should not take the business’s interests into account. It’s amazing how advocates of the “free market” nonetheless think that the community is required to bow and scrape for the privilege of having businesses that openly declare their interests are antagonistic to ours. We are at least as entitled to the pursuit of our own interests as any business is. If you insist on having the war of all against all, don’t be surprised when war gets made on *you*.
The point above about the UWS not really being a 24/7 neighborhood anymore (if it ever was) is unfortunately correct. I myself am a night owl and used to patronize more than one of the establishments named here, but it’s not like traffic was ever all that heavy.
Typical black and white thinking, and wrong.
People may moan about Mr. Catsimatidis and his other businesses all they like; but without that income Red Apple/Sloane’s (and thus Gristedes and now DAG supermarkets) would likely have folded long ago.
DAG certainly would have gone bankrupt and closed if Mr. Catsimatidis hadn’t stepped in a year or so ago with financial support when no bank or others would go near.
No, neither place is my favorite supermarket, but often they are the only places left in certain areas of Manhattan. Today when a supermarket closes there is no promise another will take that space.
Loose gossip says that when time comes and Mr. Catsimatidis succumbs to fate that wait for us all; Red Apple will likely cease or will be sold.
no metric shows reasonable minimum wage hurting the economy. it is the real trickle down, as opposed to tax cuts for money hoarding rich.
Let’s blame workers for the piss poor business practices of their boss. How much money does a person actually need? Greed is the problem, not wages.
This is happening in other parts of the city too. Multiple diners in Queens that were open 24 hours for decades now close around midnight. And the changes definitely seemed to coincide with the min wage increasing.