Thrifty Drug Stores

J.C. Penney Co., in one of its first moves to fight competition by expanding through acquisitions, said Tuesday that it will buy the 272-store Fay's Inc. drugstore chain in the Northeast for $285 million in stock. Penney, whose sales and earnings have been sagging for more than a year, has made no secret of its intention to improve results by seeking to buy other companies.

Revco D.S. Inc. agreed to buy Hook-SupeRx Inc. for $13.75 a share, or about $600 million, creating what would be the country's second-largest retail drugstore chain. The purchase, expected to close in early summer, comes less than two years after Revco emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and ensures the company a major position in the rapidly consolidating retail drug industry. Adding the 1,200 stores run by Cincinnati-based Hook-SupeRx would double Revco's total to almost 2,400.

An 11-year-old boy from Granada Hills cooked a meal Saturday for about 30 families--including 75 children--who live at a homeless shelter in North Hollywood. And what a meal it was: juicy hamburgers, homemade potato salad, fresh carrot salad, nachos with cheese, and pie. Marko Moreno, a sixth-grader in the performing arts magnet at Pacoima Middle School, had been planning the holiday feast for several months, recruiting volunteers from his family, Boy Scout troop, church and school.

The holidays are winding down for most of us. Not for Alice Salas, though. The season was just starting to roll Tuesday when she switched on her cutting console near downtown Los Angeles and a Christmas tree popped out. Salas is a drugstore photofinisher. And for the next few weeks, she'll help produce up to 1 million holiday pictures a day for snapshooters throughout Southern California.

It was only 9:25 Tuesday morning and Supervisor Mike Antonovich was eating a vanilla ice-cream cone. The oddly timed indulgence was not a new food kick for the health-conscious politician. Instead, it was the climax of a news conference kicking off a new recycling program for northeastern Los Angeles.

Thrifty PayLess Inc. announced Monday that it has donated its former Mid-Wilshire headquarters to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Leonard Green, controlling shareholder of Thrifty PayLess, announced the gift of the 12-story building at 3424 Wilshire Blvd. at a news conference that was attended by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles.

Pacific Enterprises confirmed Monday that it is actively discussing the sale of its money-losing Thrifty Corp. retailing subsidiary--including the Thrifty Drug chain--with several potential buyers. The company declined to reveal the names of the parties engaged in acquisition talks, but industry publications have reported that they have at some point included Kmart Corp., whose retail operations include Payless Drug and Sports Authority outlets, and Walgreen Co.

Under legal pressure by environmentalists, five major retail chains are pulling K2r Spotlifter from the shelves of more than 1,400 California stores because the product does not bear a cancer warning. Lucky Stores, Alpha Beta, Safeway Stores, Thrifty Drug Stores and Sav-on responded to a complaint filed July 5 by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club under California's Proposition 65. Some of the stores also withdrew certain other products cited in the complaint.

The latest in infant products is a bottle that tells when the milk or formula it holds is too hot for baby. The bottle doesn't talk--it changes color. Just released by ansa Bottle Company Inc. of Muskogee, Okla., the Easy-to-Know bottle is made of a heat-sensitive plastic that turns from various pastel shades at room temperature to white when its contents are too hot.

Kmart Corp. on Wednesday said it is soliciting offers for its Pay Less drugstore unit, a move that could dramatically alter the competitive landscape among pharmacy retailers in California. With Pay Less' ranking as the state's fourth-largest drugstore chain, major western competitors may be among those considering bidding for the company, some industry analysts suggested. Of the chain's 552 stores in 12 western states, 216 are in California--including 60 in Southern California.