Check Out Walgreens…But Leave The Cart!

By now you may have noticed that Walgreens has officially opened their doors for business. They had their grand opening tree planting ceremony today, June 24, 2009 and many of our local community leaders were on hand to welcome them to the neighborhood. There were plenty of free samples for the guests to enjoy, from ice cream and Coca Cola Zero to Walgreens Water Bottles filled with goodies. The ceremony was short and sweet, but the main point that was presented was the great lengths Walgreens went to make this whole project a “green” project.

This is their flagship store when it comes to the future of Walgreens buildings. They are LEED certified, which by definition is: LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. Take a walk into the store, and immediately you notice the use of sky lights throughout the building that reduces the need for florescent lighting. The landscape was designed to be self sustaining after a few months, and will rely on our annual rainfall to keep vegetation lush instead of a water maintenance system.

They had the community in mind when they designed this building, it’s resources, and even our #1 community issue: Shopping Carts. The one thing that I believe will make an immediate impact is the implementation of their theft resistant shopping carts. As most Mira Mesa residents know, we have a major issue with people removing shopping carts from the designated store areas and abandoning them in front of bus stops or in open fields. Actually, you can see groups of them in every park, side street, and major intersection street corner on a daily basis. The Walgreens shopping carts will engage a wheel lock when they are removed from the parking lot by a sensor, and the carts can not be moved. We are hoping that other stores in Mira Mesa will follow the example led by Walgreens and purchase this system for their stores. I received an email that I have to share with you which explains this issue humorously:

Checked out the new Walgreen’s this weekend…wanted specifically to see if I could steal a shopping cart. Not that I needed one, but stealing shopping carts is a traditional local pastime in Mira Mesa, and I wanted to test out their new anti-theft device. They have signs, and big yellow warning lines painted on the parking lot warning you NOT to take them out of the lot. Well! I’d show them! So I grab a cart and march off in the direction of Carl’s Jr. – right towards the yellow DMZ. I get to the line and slowly cross over…AHA! I made it across the line! I’ll just keep pushing this until – NNGGGRRRRRNNNNCH.

“Hmm, wow, this cart stopped and hard…apparently, there must be some kind of magnet in the front wheels – man, this thing isn’t moving at all! Well, I’ll just return it; I’ll just pop a wheelie, so I can put it back across the line. Two things wrong with that idea, first, when you get back on the right side of the line, the wheels don’t automatically unlock! AND, they have a spoiler bar across the back wheel, so you can’t get the front wheels off the ground! Since they have wire mesh across the frame of the cart, I had to pick it up with my fingertips and gingerly pull it back into the store.

The short of it is, I don’t think anybody is going to be able to steal one of these carts by wheeling it anywhere…but it’d be funny to watch them try.” – Name withheld to protect their identity.

So my recommendation is for you to visit the new Walgreens, check out the Pharmacy, as it is easy to use and they are very helpful. They are open 24 hours a day, they have a drive through pharmacy which is a great convenience, and there are some great deals inside. Just don’t try to take the shopping cart home with you.