LYNN — He has filled customers’ prescriptions for 28 years, but Ted Ball said he is closing his Lewis Street pharmacy today and moving to Rite Aid because health care industry changes have made it too tough to operate as an independent pharmacist.
Ball said he has been thinking about closing Crown Drug for two years and said a growing trend by insurance companies to trim the profit margin they negotiate with independent druggists helped drive his decision.
“Over the years, that has eroded enormously,” he said.
Ball packed up his drug store located at the corner of Lewis and Atlantic Street on Monday, and transferred customer records and other information to Rite Aid, located down Lewis from Crown.
Ball operated Crown for almost 28 years and he thanked longtime customers for their loyalty in a letter urging them to continue filling their prescriptions with him at Rite Aid. He said his employees have opportunities and plans they are pursuing.
“To my pleasant surprise, I’ve had a very positive response from my customers indicating that they will continue to do business right down the road,” he said.
The Lynn native said his small pharmacy absorbed most of the healthcare industry’s significant changes during its four decades in business, but recent changes demanded tougher adjustments.
“You have to be more knowledgeable to work through the system,” he said.
He said Medicare prescription plans and development of more expensive drugs saddle small pharmacies like Crown with increasingly complicated paperwork. Ball was a teenager when he started working in the former Crown Drug located across Lewis Street from his store. He operated the soda fountain before owner Leonard and Albert Jacobs promoted him to clerk.
“At one time there were 35 pharmacies in Lynn, including six or seven along Lewis,” he said.
Ball maintained a relationship with the brothers through pharmacy school and bought Crown in 1985. He said he earned “thousands of loyal customers” over the ensuing years.
In his letter to customers, Ball wrote that Rite Aid “operates with the same high standards for excellent customer service that we have always considered so very important.”
Ball owns the building Crown is located in and plans to lease the drug store space to another business tenant.
He said working for the drug store chain will give him more time to discuss health concerns and prescriptions with customers. Crown’s phone numbers will now ring at Rite Aid.
“I look forward to taking advantage of the additional resources that a big company provides,” he said.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
