CVS adds time-delay safes in NC stores to prevent opioid robberies

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- As opioid addiction has ramped up, so have robberies. CVS stores across North Carolina now have time-delay safes to prevent opioid robberies.

"Whenever a gun's involved it can become very dangerous very quickly for everyone who's in the immediate area," said CVS customer Natasha Moore of Raleigh as she left the company's store on Fayetteville Street downtown.

That store and all of the CVS pharmacies in North Carolina now have bright red signs on their front doors that read, "WARNING TIME-DELAY PHARMACY SAFES IN USE, monitored by 24 hour surveillance, emergency alarm systems, for safety and security"

According to CVS that means that even though a pharmacist has a code to open the narcotics safe, it doesn't open immediately.

"Pharmacy robbers, they really want to get in and out of the pharmacy as quickly as possible. And when you have to wait to have access that becomes a deterrent that has decreased pharmacy robberies in all of the markets that we've installed these," Brian Bache the region director for CVS in North Carolina told ABC by phone from Charlotte today.

Bache says when the safes were installed in the Indianapolis market it cut robberies by 70%.

CVS customer Natasha Moore is one of those not directly affected by the opioid epidemic and said until today she didn't realize it could have an impact on her life just because she goes to the drug store.

"I actually didn't know it was this bad. That really saddens me. But I'm just really excited that CVS is doing what they can to make it safer for everybody," she said.