Rexall Pharmacy has gotten on a lot of folks’s bad sides in Pembroke this past weekend. As the locals are aware, the 2010 Christmas parade ended up happening on Saturday. We were there, for all the fun that was–a separate entry on that’s coming. The parade’s route this year, as it does nearly every year, took it up Pembroke’s main street, past several stores, at least one Tim Horton’s, and several conveniently located apartment buildings. As a result, sidestreets were blocked along the parade route up to about half an hour before it was supposed to start. Standard operating procedure in Pembroke–one of the very few things that actually makes sense about the place. Enter the suck of the weekend.
The likelyhood of people actually wanting to play customer for the duration of the parade is pretty much next to nill. So we pulled into a Rexall Pharmacy parking lot, intent on leaving our vehicle there and finding us a spot along the parade route–a short walk away–to stand and watch. At least two members of pharmacy staff were quick to come out of the store, and make a very good show of telling us, and the family we were with, that the parking lot was reserved for customers and we were to move our vehicles immediately. One of the members of the family we were with, who was driving their vehicle, was inside having a prescription filled. The staffer who talked to them instructed them to go inside, get the keys from the driver, and move the vehicle. Several more people who had intended to leave their vehicles there, and may or may not have thought about dropping into the store before the parade, got the same lecture.
As said, as soon as the parade started, there weren’t a whole lot of people actually in the store–most if not all of them were standing on the side of the street, with us, watching the parade–and bitching about having been told to give up their parking space for nonexistent customers. But that having been said, the sidestreets on either side of where we were were blocked off, and Rexall wasn’t the only store who’s parking lot was quickly filling with spectators. I’m still curious where, exactly, the pharmacy staffers would have prefered we go. I don’t particularly think there was a preference–just as long as it wasn’t Rexall’s parking lot, which was–as we pointed out to the pharmacy staffer–shortly left pretty vacant after all the evictions were handed out.
A note to Rexall Pharmacy. There’s a parade on. That parade runs pretty well right past your store. Do you think you’re gonna get very many customers for the hour it’s actually running? Trust me, none of your sales are that good. And hey look at that, the prescription wasn’t even ready when the parade winded down–making the folks we were with still your customers for the duration of the parade. Who knew?
Related: When folks actually do have motives for pulling into your parking lot other than to watch the parade–like, for instance, ordering a prescription–it’s probably not a good idea to kick them off your property. You tend to actually *lose* customers that way. Oh, right–they were watching the parade. They weren’t actually customers. Okay forget I said anything.