WHY BOYCOTT CVS?

March 24, 2000 -- I'm asked that question sometimes when I'm going through a toll-booth, or stuck in traffic, or getting into my car in a parking lot.
You know the bumper sticker that prompts the question. You've seen them around the neighborhood.
The background of the boycott is as follows, for those of you who are new to the neighborhood and to PCA.
In early 1997, we awoke one morning to find a sign on the MacArthur Theater indicating it was about to be closed. To our surprise, the owners of the theater had sold the property to a developer who in turn had signed a long-term lease with CVS.
We were not happy.
Designed by prominent theater architect John J. Zink, the MacArthur was built in 1946 in the Art Moderne style. Its materials and streamlined design were influenced by the shortages of the war years, and it is an important example of the evolution of aesthetics in the movie industry.
PCA went before the Historic Preservation Review Board in May of that year. With the help of Linda Lyons (representing the Art Deco Society), Robert Headley (author of the 1999 book, Motion Picture Exhibition in Washington, D.C.), and the Traceries firm, we got the exterior and lobby of the theater landmarked.
This step insured that the shell of the theater itself would remain intact regardless of its occupant.
CVS opened in the MacArthur the week of Halloween of 1997.
PCA has voted repeatedly and overwhelmingly to boycott the CVS.
Each Palisades resident who voted for, and continues to support, the boycott has presumably his or her own well-thought-out reasons. I like our neighborhood with its small-town atmosphere. And I like to do business with people who are my neighbors, or who seem like neighbors because they've been on the boulevard forever and we've gotten to know each other.
In addition, my thinking was influenced by comments such as these:
Jim Speight, head of the Historic Preservation Review Board, said in an April 1997 hearing (on another matter), "Retail should be geared to the needs of the neighborhood."
In an article entitled "The Ideal City," Stanley Abercrombie wrote in a 1997 issue of the magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation:" the more distinctive the town is able to keep itself, the more desirable a destination it will become.... The more individual its shops and markets, the greater magnet they will be for those communities suffering from international homogenization."
And on February 12 our own Mayor Williams described his vision of tree-lined avenues coming into the city, neighborhoods feeling proud of their identities, and development compatible in scale with the residential surroundings taking place in the neighborhoods.
If you visit the CVS website, as I have done intermittently over the last few years, you will have learned that the company policy is to cast off "surplus properties," probably because they are unprofitable.
Furthermore, I've been told by an anonymous source that CVS policy is to hang on to a location for 5 years; then to sell it if it's not doing well.
Some people will tell you that CVS' corporate policy is socially repugnant; that they will not go into low-income neighborhoods. I'm not entirely convinced of that, since they seem to be in every ward of the city in every mini-mall and commercial zone and on many corners in between. But, certainly, they are concentrated in the more affluent neighborhoods - 75-80% of CVS' over 40 District stores are in the NW quadrant.
The purpose of our boycott is to encourage CVS to pull out of the MacArthur. I hope that it will become "surplus property" before too long. I would also like a theater again in our neighborhood.
I remember coming to the MacArthur in the late 50s to see English movies. It was then what we would now call a "popular destination."
Cineplex Odeon, whose corporate headquarters are in Toronto, took over the theater from a local theater company, KB Theaters, in 1982 and triplexed it.
As far as I know, Cineplex Odeon never did a market study of what we wanted here. They showed second and third-run movies. They lost money.
Imagine that today the MacArthur Theater showed art films, foreign language films and independent films.
Imagine if it were a satellite of the American Film Institute.
Imagine the theater becoming a magnet for the community, both the immediate neighborhood, and a wider community of movie-goers.
Imagine Humphrey Bogart week in June and Alec Guinness week in July.... And French movies every Tuesday night and ..... keep going.
Imagine! And if you care to join the boycott and make your commitment public, call me and I'll bring, or mail you, a bumper-sticker (or two).
-- Alice Stewart

Alice is third vice president of PCA and chair of its historic preservation committee. Her telephone number is 364-1505.