Walgreens to Close Chicago Store After Losing Over $1M to Rampant Theft, What It Means for the South Side

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Here’s a sentence you don’t expect to write about your neighborhood pharmacy: the theft rate hit 16% and employees were jumping over counters to stop people from stealing liquor.

But that’s exactly what happened at the Walgreens at 86th and Cottage Grove on Chicago’s South Side.

And now, after more than 20 years serving the Chatham community, the store is closing its doors for good on June 4, 2026. Walgreens executives revealed at a town hall meeting that the location lost over $1 million last year, crushed between rampant theft and softening prescription sales. The company spent $400,000 a year on security guards. Lock boxes meant to protect merchandise were “regularly destroyed.” Staff members faced attacks and threats.

And yet.

The response from the community hasn’t been “good riddance.” It’s been heartbreak, and fury. Alderman William Hall stood outside the store and called it “first-degree corporate abandonment.” Seniors who don’t drive are wondering how they’ll get their blood pressure medication. Parents of children with asthma and ADHD are scrambling.

This story isn’t really about one Walgreens. It’s about what happens when retail crime, corporate balance sheets, and vulnerable communities collide, and who gets left holding the empty prescription bottle.

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What Happened at the Chatham Walgreens?

Let’s get the facts down first, because the details matter.

The Walgreens at 8628 S. Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood will permanently close on June 4, 2026. The announcement came in early May, followed by a community town hall where Walgreens regional vice president Reginald Johnson faced residents directly.

“I’m here today because we’re closing the store at 86th and Cottage Grove. But I just want to make sure everyone understands closing stores is not our goal. This is the last resort,” Johnson said.

The store had already seen its hours cut, from 24-hour service down to closing at midnight, more than two years earlier, a move a company spokesperson attributed at the time to “an operational decision” without further comment.

But this time, Walgreens laid out the specifics.

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The Numbers Behind the Closure

The financial and safety data paint a stark picture. Three numbers tell the story:

$1 Million: The Annual Loss

The store lost more than a million dollars last year. That’s not revenue, that’s loss. Part of it came from declining prescription sales, but a massive portion was straight-up theft.

16%: The Theft Rate (Four Times the Company Average)

“Theft at this store is 16%,” Johnson told the town hall. “That’s four times above the company average.” To put that in perspective: for every $100 worth of merchandise passing through that store, roughly $16 walked out the door unpaid. The typical Walgreens sees about 4%.

$400,000: Annual Security Spending, That Wasn’t Enough

Walgreens spent nearly half a million dollars a year on security guards at this single location. And still, employees faced violence.

“We’ve had people jump across the counters, because we sell liquor behind the counter, taking liquor, cigarettes,” said store manager Lonnie Fuqua. “That wears. That wears down. Not so much the financial piece but the endurance of that day in and day out.”

Lock boxes, those frustrating glass cases that make you wait for an employee to buy deodorant, were “regularly destroyed, and that’s at a great cost to the company,” said district manager Jason Vasquez.

So Walgreens tried what every retailer tries. More security. Locked cases. Operational adjustments. And it still wasn’t enough.

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“First-Degree Corporate Abandonment”, The Community Fights Back

If Walgreens expected a quiet exit, they miscalculated.

Within days of the announcement, 6th Ward Alderman William Hall led a rally outside the store. Residents waved signs reading “Senior Lives Matter” and “No More Corporate Abandonment.”

“Walgreens should be charged with first-degree corporate abandonment,” Hall said. “It should be a crime, the way they’re treating our elders. It should be a crime, the way they’re treating our families.”

That phrase, “first-degree corporate abandonment”, caught fire. It’s the kind of line that spreads across social media and local news because it captures something real: the sense that decisions made in Deerfield boardrooms land with devastating impact on streets like Cottage Grove.

And Hall wasn’t alone. Alderman Desmond Yancy (5th Ward) stood in solidarity, noting that three Walgreens stores in nearby South Shore had closed within an 18-month span.

State Senator Elgie Sims hosted the community forum where Walgreens executives faced residents, and the anger was palpable.

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Seniors, Parents, and the Fear of a “Pharmacy Desert”

Behind the political theater are real people with real medication needs.

Carla Germany, a Walgreens customer, put it plainly: “To close it in a community that is filled with senior citizens is a disservice to us. I don’t drive. Having to go across town to get my medicine will be an inconvenience.”

Daycare owner Latonya Mitchell said families at her Exceptional Little Leaders Academy rely on the store because it’s within walking distance. Children she serves need medication for ADHD and asthma. “It’s unacceptable to these children that they can’t get the things that they need from a place like this, and then you gotta leave us destitute and in a desert,” she said.

Denitra Gardner, whose husband depends on weekly pharmacy access, described the closure as having “the rug pulled from under you.”

Michelle Thompkins faces longer drives to get her son’s insulin. “It makes it that much harder for me to get the insulin my son needs, and those vital resources.”

The nearest alternative Walgreens is 1.3 miles away at 1616 E. 87th St. For someone with a car, negligible. For a senior with mobility issues, a single parent juggling work and childcare, or someone managing a chronic condition, that 1.3 miles might as well be 30.

This is what “pharmacy desert” actually looks like. It’s not sand dunes. It’s a bus ride you can’t physically make, with a prescription you can’t afford to miss.

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Is This Just One Store, or a National Crisis?

The Chatham closure didn’t happen in isolation.

Walgreens’ 1,200-Store Closure Plan

In October 2024, Walgreens announced plans to close roughly 1,200 U.S. stores by 2027, with about 500 closures in fiscal year 2025 alone. That means about one in every seven Walgreens locations will disappear.

In Chicago specifically, five Walgreens stores, in Bronzeville, Little Village, South Shore, Chicago Lawn, and South Chicago, closed in February 2025. West Roseland lost its store in 2023. With the Chatham closure, at least seven South Side locations have closed or will close since 2025, including the area’s only specialty pharmacy at 2351 E. 71st St.

The pattern is impossible to ignore: closures are concentrated in lower-income, predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. Communities that already face healthcare access disparities.

Organized Retail Crime and the Shrink Epidemic

Meanwhile, retail crime has transformed. It’s not just isolated shoplifting anymore, it’s organized retail crime (ORC), defined by federal agencies as “large-scale theft and fraud carried out by criminal enterprises that steal in bulk from multiple stores and then resell or launder the proceeds.”

The National Retail Federation reports that U.S. retailers lost $112 billion to “shrink” — the industry term for inventory that disappears without being sold, in 2022, up from $94 billion the year before. Shrink includes theft, but also administrative errors, vendor fraud, and damage. Still, theft is the dominant driver.

Walgreens specifically saw a 52% increase in shrink compared to pre-2020 levels, a number that CFO James Kehoe first flagged in 2022, and that CEO Tim Wentworth has wrestled with since.

Some jurisdictions have been hit harder than others. A 2025 report documented a 93% increase in shoplifting incidents since 2019 across surveyed retailers. Chicago ranked as a hotspot for retail theft, with shoplifting crimes jumping nearly 50% over a nine-month period in 2025.

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The Irony of Locked Cabinets and Lost Sales

Here’s where the story takes a strange, almost tragic turn.

In January 2025, Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth admitted something on an earnings call that made headlines, and, frankly, made a lot of customers feel vindicated:

“When you lock things up… you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.”

The company’s anti-theft measures, those locked cases, security tags, and other barriers, were actually costing them sales. Customers who couldn’t easily grab toothpaste or allergy medicine simply… stopped buying. Or went elsewhere. Or ordered online.

This contributed to a $245 million operating loss in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 alone.

Wentworth described combating retail theft as “hand-to-hand combat” — and acknowledged the company doesn’t have a perfect solution. They’re exploring “creative” approaches, but as he admitted: “I don’t have anything magnificent to share with you today.”

The paradox is brutal: you lock up merchandise to stop theft, and honest customers stop buying. You don’t lock it up, and theft eats your margins. Either way, the store bleeds. Either way, communities lose.

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What Happens Now? A Guide for Affected Customers

If you’re a Chatham Walgreens customer, or someone facing a similar situation elsewhere, here’s what you need to know:

Your Prescriptions

• Until June 4: You can continue filling prescriptions at the Cottage Grove location as normal.
• After June 4: Prescriptions will be automatically transferred to the nearest Walgreens at 1616 E. 87th St. (about 1.3 miles away) to ensure uninterrupted service.
• Free Delivery for 90 Days: Walgreens is offering free prescription delivery for 90 days to ease the transition. This has already started for eligible medications.
• Talk to Your Pharmacist: Ask about setting up mail delivery, auto-refill, or 90-day supply options before the store closes.

Other Options to Explore

• Check if your insurance covers mail-order pharmacy services (many plans do)
• Investigate independent pharmacies in the Chatham area, some may offer delivery
• If transportation is an issue, Illinois Medicaid and some Medicare Advantage plans include transportation benefits for medical appointments (including pharmacy visits)

For Employees

Walgreens says employees at the Chatham store will be offered opportunities to transfer to other locations.

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What This Means for Chicago, and for You

This single store closure is a canary in a very important coal mine.

When a pharmacy closes in a neighborhood like Chatham, it’s not just an inconvenience. Studies show that pharmacy closures are associated with clinically significant declines in medication adherence, particularly for cardiovascular drugs among older adults. People literally get sicker when their pharmacy disappears.

The tension is real on both sides. Walgreens is a business, not a charity, and no company can sustain a location losing $1 million a year with a 16% theft rate and ongoing safety threats to employees. As a Walgreens spokesperson said: “While this was not an easy decision, safety must remain our top priority.”

But communities aren’t spreadsheets, either. When you’ve served a neighborhood for over 20 years, built on land developed with public TIF financing, and anchored healthcare access for thousands of seniors and families, walking away leaves wounds that don’t heal quickly.

The question isn’t really “should Walgreens have closed this store?” The question is: what kind of society allows a situation to develop where the only options are “keep operating at a massive loss while employees face violence” or “abandon an entire community’s healthcare access”?

That’s a policy question. A public safety question. A corporate responsibility question. And it’s one that Chicago, and cities across America, are going to have to answer, because Chatham isn’t going to be the last.