A CVS in Montgomery County, Maryland, is keeping its soda under lock and key.
The store on Wayne Avenue in downtown Silver Spring equipped its refrigerators with locks. Customers must ask an employee to unlock them if they want to buy a beverage.
Customer Linda Leakes said she goes to the store since the one closest to her, in D.C.’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, closed earlier this year after a long-running battle with retail theft that made national news.
“The one in D.C. — on 14th Street — large, large shop, but it’s closed, now,” Leakes said. “So, that means all those people that were working there are without a job.”
In a statement about the locked-up beverages at the Wayne Avenue CVS, the company issued a statement to News4 that reads, in part, “Different products experience different theft rates, depending on store location and other factors, and our product protection decisions are data driven. We utilize a variety of different measures to deter or prevent theft and locking a product is a measure of last resort.”
“To me, personally, it’s like you’re not being fair to the public when you do stuff like that,” customer Phillip Joy said. “You’re not being fair to everybody else. You’re judging the masses for what certain individuals do.”
Many drugstores throughout the D.C. area lock up laundry detergent and other frequently stolen items.
News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.