At a Midtown Sweetbay in St. Petersburg, a customer looking to buy condoms finds the product locked behind a glass case, accessible only by a pharmacist who's already left for the day. At another Sweetbay, this time in Tampa, an annoyed clerk watches over a condom-buyer while he selects his brand. Inside a St. Pete Kmart, a would-be condom purchaser waits 10 minutes for a clerk to open a locked case before finally deciding to leave.
Across Tampa Bay, men and women looking to buy condoms from local drugstores and supermarkets are finding the prophylactics locked up. And in a state that ranks third in HIV rates and sixth in teenage pregnancy, some local health advocates say that's a bad prescription.
"It does set up a barrier," says Marilyn Anderson, director of education and training for the Southwest and Central Florida chapter of Planned Parenthood. "It takes a lot of courage for some adults to buy condoms."
Adds Lynne Swain, an HIV/AIDS prevention and training consultant for the Pinellas County Health Department who teaches a prevention class that includes a section on condom availability: "The participants of the class find [locking up condoms] to be a big negative. … Many times [clerks] will make [the participants] feel uncomfortable or look at them like they're perverts."
An informal CL survey of local retailers in Tampa and St. Pete found that several choose to lock up their condoms in glass cases, forcing a customer to seek out a clerk or pharmacist for help. Most of those stores — including CVS, Kmart and Sweetbay — are located in low-income and predominantly African-American areas where the incidents of HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy are the highest.
Hillsborough County ranks fifth in the state for cases of HIV/AIDS; Pinellas County ranks seventh. Hillsborough is second in teenage pregnancies; Pinellas is sixth. African-Americans comprise 14 percent of the state's population and over half of the AIDS cases reported in 2007. African-American teenagers are most at risk.
Retailers cite theft as the reason for locking up their prophylactics.
"It is not our policy to lock condoms in our stores," says CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis. "In a small percentage of our stores where condoms have been targeted by shoplifters to the degree that they were becoming unavailable for customers to purchase, they are kept in a secure display."
In 2006, CVS took heat from several groups in Washington D.C. for locking up condoms in areas with the highest HIV rates. Similar campaigns targeted stores in Detroit, Milwaukee and New York City.
Sears, which owns Kmart, did not respond to calls for comment. Sweetbay also did not return calls.
Anderson of Planned Parenthood says she hears the most complaints from teenagers.
"What the kids tell us is often when they wanted to purchase them, a pharmacist would say they are too young," she says. "I know kids who were humiliated buying condoms, so they go back and take them."
Since 1994, the Pinellas County Health Department has offered an HIV/AIDS training class for community members. As part of the class, participants visit a local retailer to buy condoms and, afterward, tell the class about their reactions. Since the class began in 1994, Swain says many participants have experienced barriers to condom availability, not just through retailers locking condoms away, but in the reactions of the clerks themselves.
So what's a condom seeker to do?
Swain and Anderson point out that free condoms are readily available at all county health centers.
"We actually listen to the community and what [brands] they want," Swain says.
In addition, the Pinellas County Health Department distributes condoms to popular hangouts like beauty salons, barber shops and youth centers.
"Believe it or not, we have a few churches that keep them on hand," she adds.
And Anderson says besides offering free condoms at all Planned Parenthood sites, they've started a "Condom Trail" of 32 bars and clubs in Sarasota County that they hope to emulate in other Southwest Florida counties.
"The bars have gotten comfortable enough to call us to ask for refills," she says.
Just as sexually active men and women have a choice in where to obtain condoms, retailers also have a choice in how to sell them.
After the controversy in Washington D.C., CVS employed a "power wing" system for its D.C stores, in which only one package can be removed at a time. Tampa Bay area CVS stores in more affluent areas tend to use antitheft stickers to control theft. And at least one drugstore, Walgreen's, has pledged not to lock up condoms.
"Our policy is to keep [condoms] available and unlocked," says Carol Hively, Walgreen's corporate spokesperson. "Our goal chainwide is for easy access and no hindrances for people wanting to buy condoms."
Sure enough, at a Midtown Walgreen's in St. Pete, where several other items like baby formula and Visine are under lock and key, packages of condoms hang freely on a peg, ready for purchase.
Meet Tampa Bay's rubber gland man.
This article appears in Feb 13-19, 2008.
