Look, We Need Our Drugs.

In New York City you're never more than a couple of blocks from a Duane Reade, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Eckerd, CVS, or one of the hundreds (used to be thousands) of locally-owned pharmacies. I guess when you build a city in which everyone lives on top of each other, you get a lot of teethbrushers-per-block. And a lot of chlamydia.

My neighborhood in sunny Sunnyside, Queens has a downright obscene number of drug stores. A new CVS has opened to put two local pharmacies down the block out of business. I like the support the local guy, but to be honest, these pharmacies sort of suck. One is filthy with a rude staff, and one seems to solely carry lottery tickets.

Still, a former Sunnysider brought this Daily News article to my attention. A Rite Aid has opened up directly next door to a Rite Aid on Greenpoint Avenue. No, it's not a continuation of a Rite Aid that outgrew itself. It's a second, complete Rite Aid. Thankfully, there's a third Rite Aid three blocks away.

The newer Rite Aid on the corner was once an Eckerd, which Rite Aid just gobbled up, perhaps to celebrate Thanksgiving, and a spokesperson for Rite Aid said that they performed its "market research," and the Rite-Aid-next-door-to-a-Rite-Aid model "makes sense" for our neighborhood.

The Daily News closes its article with this gem:

John Vogt, president of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce, wants to help make Sunnyside a destination for tourists by bringing in retail stores like the Gap as well as eateries to help promote the neighborhood.

"You can never have enough restaurants. We need more boutiques in the area or more bookstores," said Vogt.

Eateries, boutiques, and bookstores sound alright. But the Gap? The Gap will make Sunnyside a destination for tourists? Maybe a Gap would keep Sunnyside shoppers from going to the mall in Elmhurst, but a destination for tourists?

"Hey, honey, let's to go to Paris! They've just opened a Gap!"