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November 26th, 2007
08:22 am
I absolutely love the last sentence in this snippet of a Globe article on the closing of a Roxbury liquor store. It comes in the middle of a section describing those other than the store's owners who stand to lose income from the closure (the homeless who redeem their empties at the store, or who earn a few bucks a day sweeping up and running errands, for instance.) And then there's this fellow:David Mays has even more to lose. The president of Tow Happy earns about $2,800 a week towing cars from Liquor Land's lot, where people visiting the hospital often park illegally. "There's no way I'll replace this income," he said, after nearly towing the car of a reporter who had been at the store. This is amazingly beautiful because it tells the entire story right there.
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![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/79213823/864661) | | From: |  wring |
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| Date: | November 26th, 2007 02:33 pm (UTC) |
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lol "Tow Happy" indeed. Yeah, you gotta wonder about a tow company that decides to call itself Tow Happy. Then, on the other hand, you kinda know who's gonna be happy in those situations and's not... CVS seem to be pursuing total world domination, don't they? They opened a new store on Washington Street in Downtown Crossing, the size of a small department store. It's one block from an older CVS which I thought they would now close, but no, it's still open too. I could take you on a 10-minute walk through downtown Boston where we would pass by seven CVS stores, and no competing drugstores. Well to be fair, the new, larger location on Washington Street replaced a location across the street that was completely too small for it and constantly overcrowded, but you're right, they've become the Dunkin Donuts of Boston-area drugstores. I mean, if you don't wanna go to the CVS on Washington Street, you can just walk a bit down Summer past Macy's, and...
I wish I'd gotten a picture of that section of Washington Street when both CVS facades were still up. Reminded me of the infamous intersection in Revere with Dunkin' Donuts on opposite diagonal corners from each other for a while.
The camera doesn't do well for long shots, however. If you stand in front of Kinko's or Copy Cop, across from the Pi Alley Garage, you might be able to get the old (still-open) and the new CVS signs in the same shot. But I doubt both would be readable. | From: | dcart |
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| Date: | November 26th, 2007 10:06 pm (UTC) |
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Not just Boston. CVS bought out Revco, Eckerd's and a bunch of other regional chains. They were also part of the group that carved up Albertson's last year. In a lot of places, there's little more than token competition from Walgreen's or Rite-aid.
I was almost happy to find that CVS isn't in this area when we moved here. So far, every time they've bought out some other chain that I used, the place really went to crap under CVS ownership: longer lines, poor customer service, etc, etc. Rite-Aid bought Eckerd (and Brooks, which was part of the same company).
Where do you live that doesn't have CVS? Must not be anywhere near Boston. | From: | dcart |
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| Date: | November 26th, 2007 10:33 pm (UTC) |
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My wife and I moved to the San Jose area about a year ago. According to their website, the nearest CVS is about 200 miles away. God, I wish I could get a long-distance subscription to The Keystone Times The Globe. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/34089820/1523506) | | From: | lindito |
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| Date: | November 26th, 2007 03:08 pm (UTC) |
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almost R1 million a year just from towing cars.
clearly i'm in the wrong line of work.
| From: | dcart |
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| Date: | November 26th, 2007 10:07 pm (UTC) |
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Tow truck drivers are the absolute bottom of the barrel. They're worse than pimps and the people who employ migrant farm workers. You don't wanna be that. That doesn't make much sense, though - wouldn't it still be illegal to park in that lot for visiting the hospital whether the lot's attached to a liquor store or not? I'd think the key things here would be "going to the hospital" and "this is not the hospital parking lot".
Although I guess maybe he's only allowed to tow if the owner complains, and the new owners have a more liberal policy. I'd bet real money that the guy leasing the building to CVS has a cousin/friend with a tow company who will happily take over Tow Happy's contract. According to the article, the guy is actually the cousin of the liquor store's owner, and there's some bad family blood going on right now about him refusing to renew her lease even when she offered to pay the amount CVS would pay for the space (roughly double what she pays now per month.)
There's the chance that CVS would expand into the parking lot, perhaps, reducing the illegal parkers. I caught that bit. I think the tow monies are part of the reason the cousin won't renew the lease. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/10106092/632017) | | From: | eeka13 |
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| Date: | November 26th, 2007 04:59 pm (UTC) |
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That's...wow. Thanks for posting.
BTW, they got one thing wrong. Not all the folks who sweep up and do odd jobs for them are homeless. A few of them are my clients, and they have homes. My folks with mental illness get called "homeless people" pretty much every day by folks who like to assume. They did refer to one can redeemer as "formerly homeless" which I guess has an okay ring to it. | | From: | eeka13 |
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| Date: | November 26th, 2007 05:23 pm (UTC) |
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Yep! Totally appropriate when it's an actual person they got the data on. Irritating though when they lump people together as "homeless" because all people with persistent mental illness are homeless even if they have homes dammit! |
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