CORNER DRUG CO. REOPENS STOREFRONT
Pharmacy welcomes back customers for first time in nearly a year; owners credit vaccinations for staff
Corner Drug Co. reopens its storefront in downtown Woodland after being closed for nearly a year.
The classic Woodland pharmacy first opened in 1897 and started delivery by bicycle around the city in 1907. In 1940, Sara Shelley’s grandfather, Karl Hanke, started working as a delivery boy for the pharmacy. Hanke eventually went to pharmacy school and became the sole owner of the store in 1980. It’s been in the family ever since.
Shelley and her husband Erik Daniells became co-owners with her mom, Lisa Shelley, in 2019. Pretty soon after that, Shelley had to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and expand the delivery that her grandfather had originally been hired to do.
The pharmacy shut down in-store operations shortly before the county-wide shelter-inplace issued March 19, 2020. They worked solely through curbside pickup and deliveries — at no additional charge. The store even expanded delivery options to both Winters and Esparto later on.
“We just decided to kind of get ahead of it,” Daniells said. “And kind of seeing writing on the wall we decided to just shut down. Do curbside pickup and we switched over to free delivery.”
A post on the company’s Facebook page from March 16, 2020 announcing the closure of their store stated that the pharmacy had been through “Two world wars, 22 presidents, disease, rationing, polio, prohibition, influenza, stock market crashes, recession, countless births, marriages and deaths.
We are facing one of our greatest challenges yet but we will press on.”
Shelley said that the pharmacy business has not been hit too hard economically by closures. Since the closure of Eagle Drug in Winters in October, Corner Drug Co. has gained a lot of new customers in the area, especially with expanded delivery options.
Corner Drug Co. has also been working on synching patient’s medications together, so deliveries can all be made on the same day.
“We’ve been really focusing on that,” Shelley explained. “And so I think a lot of those factors helped us maintain and grow the pharmacy business even if the front end was dragging.”
The decision to reopen their storefront nearly a year after first closing their doors comes at a time of declining COVID-19 cases, and increased vaccinations.
Staff at Corner Drug Co. have all been given the opportunity to be vaccinated, and it’s been two
weeks since their second dose — the likely time it takes for the vaccine to fully be in effect.
“I mean it’s a little bit of, I hate saying going back to normal, but sort of a return to what we do best — caring for the people in the community. And it’s nice that we have a front end, we have a little toy store. And that’s been pretty dormant for the last year,” Daniells said. “Because we’re kind of in the center of downtown on Main Street here, connected to the community so this sort of feels like, if we’re back, it feels like a kind of a step towards normalcy. Whatever that means.”
The store had a “soft
reopening” on March 1, according to Shelley. They’re currently operating at a limited capacity as well.
“So, just a few people at a time,” Daniells said. “Just kind of go slowly and just kind of see how it goes and we’ll also watch kind of see if there’s another spike, we may reevaluate, and switch back to curbside only but we kind of want to see how it will go.”
In the future, the pharmacy is planning on distributing the COVID-19 vaccine, but are waiting on guidance from the state — which will soon take over local vaccination programs and could come much later.