Whites Drug in Montauk Could Remain a Pharmacy

There is much concern in town today that Whites Montauk Drug & Department Store might close, resulting in residents having to drive to East Hampton, 15 miles away, to fill prescriptions.

How my dad bought and later leased that drugstore back in the day, however, shows that this doesn’t have to happen.

My dad had no money when he bought White’s in 1955. Earlier, he supported our family as a chemist, developing new products for a national cosmetics firm. In my youth I sometimes watched him at work down in the basement of our home in New Jersey. He had a lab down there.

In his 40s, he suffered a midlife crisis. He wanted to do something more important. He met an inventor who’d patented a device which, at the press of a button, allowed diabetics to inject themselves with insulin painlessly. So, he bought the patent and went into business, selling that product nationwide. Unfortunately, the business failed. What to do?

Well, he’d studied pharmacy at college and had a license to practice. But it was only good in New York. Could he find a pharmacy for sale in New York he could buy with no money down? Following a lead, he found one in the lonely town of Montauk, at the tip of Long Island. And so he bought it and moved our family from New Jersey to Montauk.

During the next seven years, he paid Mr. White roughly half the profits from the store each year to complete the purchase. After the seventh year, Dad built a new building on a vacant lot next door, three times the size, and moved the business into it.

In the late 1970s, he retired. And he and Mom leased that building to a tenant who continued the pharmacy. Then, after Mom and Dad passed, the building was willed to me and my sister.

This past December, with me, the tenant and my sister all approaching 80, the tenant told us she wanted to move on. So it seemed a good idea that we should, too. Astonishingly, that original lease from 1974, with cost of living increases, is still in effect. It ends October 31, 2024.

My sister and I sold the building for $3.7 million last December. We sold it to a physician who has a vacation home in Montauk.

Looking at the dollar amount of what we sold it for, it appears to me quite doable that an eager pharmacist hoping to own his own store could definitely manage to come in and negotiate a lease, then profitably continue with this, just as my father did years ago.

Is there such a person who might step up to the plate to make this happen? I think there is. He’s the beloved pharmacist who’s been an employee at the store for the last 12 years.

That he is so reliable would make him an attractive potential tenant for the new building owner.

He’ll have to buy the outgoing tenant’s inventory, and, unless he changes the name, an amount for the business. He’ll also have to negotiate a new rent. But the numbers support it, and it’s doable. From looking at the numbers involved, I think a bank would support it. It would be wonderful if that would work.

Back in the 1950s, I managed a soda fountain in that store, selling milkshakes and ice cream cones to the customers. Dad removed it after awhile. Didn’t fit in anymore with his plans for the store. But I remember it fondly. And in my semiretirement, I’m available to do it again if asked.