Then and Now: Main Avenue PayLess Drug Store
L.J. Skaggs, whose family created Safeway grocery stores, started PayLess Drug Stores in 1930. The first store in Spokane opened in 1932 at 612 W. Riverside Ave.
The store grew quickly and moved to the Exchange Building in 1934, adding a full walk-in humidor for cigars. Moving again in 1943, store manager Charles O’Larey called the new Main and Post location “the largest store of its kind in the Northwest.” Shoppers were given maps of the store layout on opening day of the 39,000-square-foot emporium, located next to Woolworth’s.
Though skeptics didn’t believe it would work, O’Larey made the store self-service, where customers select their own items instead of standing at a counter. The four-sided pharmacy counter was in the middle of the store. There were six cashier stands. The turnstiles came from the World’s Fair in New York.
As was common in that era, the sporting goods department sold firearms and ammunition. In 1957, Remington Arms Co. sued Payless because the store deeply discounted their products to attract customers. A lengthy court battle affirmed that manufacturers can enforce minimum prices on their retail outlets.
In the 1960s, stores were built at Shadle, in the Valley and at NorthTown. The chain was sold to J.A. Albertson in 1960, then back to Skaggs a few years later. Some of the stores took the Skaggs name. Eventually, the downtown store moved to the Parkade in the early 1990s.
Rite Aid bought and renamed the chain in 1996. O’Larey and Skaggs both died in 1970.
- Jesse Tinsley