Kalada sells out
to CVS chain
After 25 years,
Kalada sells out
to CVS chain
BY SHERRY CONOHAN
Staff Writer
CHRIS KELLY staff Only the fixtures remain in the Sea Bright Pharmacy on Ocean Avenue after owner Ken Kalada sold his business to the CVS chain.
SEA BRIGHT — When Ken Kalada went to pharmacy school, his dream and that of most of his classmates was to own their own drugstore, be their own boss, and become an integral part of the community they served.
Kalada, the proprietor of the Sea Bright Pharmacy on Ocean Avenue for more than 25 years, realized that dream as did many of his classmates. But the changing business climate for small independent drugstores persuaded him to go the route so many others like him have taken in recent years. He sold his business to the CVS Pharmacy on Route 36 in Atlantic Highlands on the border of Middletown.
"It’s the hardest decision I ever had to make," he said in an interview last week. "CVS took over on June 23. June 22 was my last day … I gave it my best shot. But I still have mixed emotions."
Kalada said that five years ago there were more than 4,000 independent pharmacies like his in New Jersey. Today, he said, fewer than 500 are left.
The culprits leading to their demise, he explained, are managed care and insurance companies.
"I don’t want to condemn the insurance companies," he said earnestly. "But if it wasn’t for the insurance companies, I would be here for another 10 years."
Kalada, a 1967 graduate of Rutgers College of Pharmacy, said he was the last in his group of 15 friends from college to sell out. He said pharmacy students today don’t want what they sought.
"They don’t want to work 60 to 70 hours a week," he reported. "They want to work for large corporations."
Kalada said he was good friends with the owner of Katsin’s drugstore on the west side of Red Bank, who just sold his pharmacy business to Rite Aid. Katsin’s, however, will continue to operate as a convenience store at its location at 192 Shrewsbury Ave.
Kalada sold out lock, stock and barrel to CVS. All that remains in his store are the fixtures for display of merchandise. What merchandise he had that CVS didn’t want, CVS sold to a liquidator. Prescriptions from the Sea Bright pharmacy were transferred to CVS.
The sale happened so quickly that some longtime customers were surprised to walk up to his store and find it empty and closed with big signs on the door and window referring them to CVS.
CVS has since sent out letters to prescription customers welcoming them to their store.
Kalada said CVS approached him about selling his business at an opportune time for him. His son, Ken Jr., had just graduated from college in December, his two daughters were married, and he was working seven days a week since his longtime Sunday pharmacist, Jean Oakes, had injured her leg five months earlier and hadn’t been able to return to work.
"It was beginning to wear me down," he said of that seven-day-a-week work schedule.
His wife, Ann Marie, worried about his health as he was approaching his 60th birthday in September. "Even when I went home, the store was still a part of me," he related
"They’ve been very good to me," he said of CVS. "My experience in dealing with them was very honorable … They paid a fair price."
The deal they struck has Kalada working four days a week now — 32 hours — at the CVS drugstore in Middletown, with full benefits, to help with the transition. Calls to his old phone number at the pharmacy here are automatically forwarded to him at his new station in the CVS store.
Kalada, whose customers came from Sea Bright, Monmouth Beach, Rumson and as far away as Red Bank, where many beach residents have relocated, to all of whom he offered free delivery, said that for a drugstore to succeed in today’s world it has to have a real good location, a lot of traffic, and a good merchandise mix out front. Without that, he said, "the small person is almost doomed. I didn’t have the space, I didn’t have the traffic to survive in the business today."
"The insurance companies make it impossible for the small guy to survive," he asserted. "It used to be the family pharmacy was the mainstay of the community."
Kalada said that as a pharmacist he was forced to join every insurance program to cover everyone among Sea Bright’s 1,300 population, and, while he tried to always be very fair with his prices, a lot of the prices were dictated by the insurance companies, with mixed results.
He said when an insurance company would balk at a prescription, he would get on the telephone and try to work it out. He said he was pleased to find CVS does the same thing.
"CVS really tries to help the patient an awful lot," he said.
In addition, Kalada said, a lot of patients were telling him their insurance companies were directing them to order their drugs by mail except for medication for pain or antibiotics.
"Things that they need right away, they can get locally," he said. "It hurts. It really does."
Kalada braved not only managed care and the insurance companies, but the elements.
There have been hurricanes and nor’easters, including the devastating storm of Dec. 11, 1992, when the water invaded his store and rose to cover merchandise on the lower shelves of his display cases. He undertook a major renovation in early 1993 to repair the damage.
"I was out of business for three days after that storm," he recalled. "We had no warning on that."
More recently, he toughed it out when the bridge to Rumson was closed for a month for repairs.
Kalada said a fateful occurrence was when the Foodtown store closed after the Dec. 11, 1992, storm flooded it for the second time in a short span. He said he immediately saw a change in traffic from Rumson, Monmouth Beach and Highlands to the borough. He said Andy K, which succeeded the Foodtown at that location, has done a good job.
But, nonetheless, "When we lost a major food business, I could see the drop-off."
Kalada said the businesses try to help each other out. He said he and Frank Bain, owner of Bain’s Hardware at the end of the block where he’s located, sent business back and forth.
Kalada formerly owned the building housing his pharmacy, but sold it in February to Won Chae and her husband, Jon, of Holmdel, who have since moved into one of the apartments upstairs.
He said there had been four apartments but the Chaes have gotten approval for a fifth unit.
"I’m sure they have the expectation of fixing it up," he said. "The store’s now for rent. I’m going to try to help them out as best I can."
Lookers so far have included Starbucks, Subway and a tanning parlor, he said.
"It’s a good corner," he said of the location, which is at the traffic light for River Street, across Ocean Avenue from the entrance to the municipal parking lot and beach. "It’s the best corner in town."
Kalada observed that Sea Bright appears to be on the upswing, which should bode well for any business moving into his location. But not for a pharmacy, he said.
He said he noticed change coming to the business 15 years ago and said it has changed drastically in the last 10 years. He said his daughter, Michelle, went to pharmacy school for one year, but saw the changes coming and didn’t want to continue the course and quit.
Kalada said all his children — Ken, Michelle and Colleen — worked in the drugstore as they were growing up.
"They all did their time there," he mused with a smile. "It taught them how to deal with people. It taught them how to deal with problems. They learned a business concept. It was a real education. I think they value that to this day."
Kalada took out a five-year lease for the pharmacy from the Chaes with an option for another five years, but has a quit clause that will release his obligation.
"I had hoped the pharmacy could be kept in operation," he said of the Sea Bright location after the sale. "But it was not economic."
Kalada, a native of Bayonne who now lives in Lincroft in a house he and his wife built in 1972, said he met a lot of people and made a lot of friends over his career in the borough and will miss them. He said he feels bad when people tell him the town needs a pharmacy.
"To me, the needs of the neighborhood would warrant a small-town pharmacy," he said. "But times change."
Kalada said he is grateful for all of the business and support his customers have given him over the years.
"It was a privilege," he said, "to take care of their prescription and medical needs."