Rent rise forces family-owned pharmacy to leave Covent Garden after 30 years

The last family-owned store on one of Covent Garden’s busiest shopping streets is closing after 30 years.

The owners of the Garden Pharmacy on Long Acre — where regular customers are said to include actors Rupert Everett, Simon Callow and Joe Swash — said the business is “unsustainable”.

Harry Ganz, 61, who runs it with wife Connie, said he faced rents going up from £410,000 a year to £600,000, with business rates of £230,000 on top.

He said: “When we started here in 1984 there were clothes shops, three coffee bars and the Covent Garden General Store. Now every single one is a chain store.” He will now be operating online.

But Mike Jones, a partner at Deloitte, property advisers to landlords The Mercers’ Company, said it had been Mr Ganz’s decision to sell his lease “for a significant sum” so that the premises could be re-let.

“Obviously rents in Covent Garden are going up but that’s not the Mercers’ Company fault, it’s because too many retailers want to be in the part of London.”