The air conditioning has been out at Walgreens Pharmacy in Noroton Heights for weeks, but on one of the hottest weekends of the year, so far, the cool air is expected to be back — by Saturday afternoon, the company says.
Walgreens at 138 Heights Road in Noroton Heights.
An air conditioning unit in the building stopped working about two weeks ago, said Kathy Greene of Darien, a customer who had become concerned about the conditions for employees and talked with the company’s management about the problem.
At one point, she recalled, the outside doors hadn’t been open, which seemed to make it hotter inside.
Walgreens is responsible for running and maintaining the air conditioning, said Amanda Theslock, a spokeswoman for the building’s owner, Federal Realty, based in Rockville, Md.
Walgreens has been waiting to get a part needed in order to fix the air conditioning unit, and the part should arrive Saturday morning, according to an employee at the store who asked not to be named. Scott Goldberg, a spokesman for Walgreens at its headquarters in Deerfield, Ill., said the unit is expected to be fixed by Saturday afternoon.
Medications, kept in the pharmacy area of the store, have been kept cooler, and areas for employees, as well as a manager’s office in the back of the store, Goldberg said.
There are regulations for the temperatures that medications have to be kept at, and if there are reports that the drugs are hotter or colder than that, the state Department of Consumer Affairs will investigate and order that the situation be corrected, said department spokeswoman Lora Rae Anderson.
The state uses these guidelines for medications that anyone should follow, in a store or at home, she said:
- Cold place: no warmer than 46 degrees
- Refrigerate: between 35.6 and 46 degrees
- Cool place: between 46 and 59 degrees
- Room temperature: between 59 and 86 degrees
- Avoid excessive heat: over 104 degrees
Anyone with a complaint about the temperature of medications bought at the store is welcome to contact the department by emailing dcp.drugcontrol@ct.gov or calling (860) 713-6065, she said.
A visit to the store early Friday afternoon showed the outside doors were open and the store, which doesn’t have any windows in the retail area, wasn’t any hotter inside than it was outside in the parking lot — 90 degrees. A floor fan was moving air at the front of the store.
Darien Health Director David Knauf said his department doesn’t have any jurisdiction over the temperatures of workplaces or medications, and state law doesn’t appear to mandate how cool a workplace needs to be, as long as it’s not hot enough to harm employees. (Construction workers and others working outside can often work in hotter conditions on hot summer days.)
Goldberg released this statement from Walgreens:
The air conditioning in the front-end of our Walgreens store at 138 Heights Rd. in Darien, CT is currently not working. We apologize to our customers who are experiencing this inconvenience.
“Most importantly, the air conditioning and refrigeration in our pharmacy at this location are working and all medications continue to be properly stored. In addition, the air conditioning in our employee break room and office is also working. We expect to have the air conditioning fixed by tomorrow afternoon.
Editor’s note: Kathy Greene said she was initially wrong about the breakdown of the air conditioner happening about three weeks ago. She heard it was about two weeks ago. The article has been changed.