Chattanooga police distributed this image from a security camera of a woman who is suspected of robbing two Walgreen’s pharmacies of drugs.To curtail prescription drug robberies at pharmacies, a national drug store chain is installing time-delayed locks on safes containing select medications such as oxycontin in the Chattanooga market.
“We installed these in Knoxville in February,” said Robert Elfinger, spokesman for Walgreen Co., a Deerfield, Ill.-based drugstore chain with about 250 stores in Tennessee. “The six months before we installed them, we had more than a dozen robberies. Since then, we’ve had one pharmacy robbery.”
Elfinger said the locks will deter robbers and make employees and customers feel safer.
The time-delayed locks have been used in other markets where pharmacies were getting hit hard, including stores in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, he said.
“In every market we have installed them, we’ve seen a drastic decline in robberies,” Elfinger said. “No. 1, it’s a deterrent, and No. 2, it eliminates the availability of the controlled substance. It takes several minutes to open the safe. It’s long enough for police to respond and allows more time to be caught on the video surveillance system.”