OCEANSIDE -- The Longs drugstore chain, an institution for three generations of Californians, is beginning to disappear from local shopping centers three months after its acquisition by its largest competitor.

With the 521 Longs stores it took over in October, CVS Caremark Corp. now has some 6,800 drugstore locations across the United States, including several dozen that are immediately across the street from one another. CVS is shuttering existing Longs stores whose markets overlap closely with those of its stores, including one on Oceanside Boulevard that dated from the late 1950s.

Retired U.S. Marine Red Brandow said he believes the drugstore opened shortly before he returned from service in Japan in 1957, and certainly before his retirement in 1960. He said he got prescriptions filled and film developed there early in the morning, in the afternoon or late at night for more than 50 years before it closed last month.

"I'd always come down here getting odds and ends," Brandow said Tuesday afternoon in front of the CVS store on Oceanside Boulevard. "If you needed a quart of milk or a loaf of bread, they'd keep it in (stock) for you."

CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis said the company plans by the end of the month to close three additional Longs stores in the region: one at Oceanside Boulevard and College Boulevard, one on El Norte Parkway just west of Interstate 15 in Escondido, and one on Jefferson Avenue in Temecula. Customers' records at the four stores are being transferred to nearby CVS stores, DeAngelis said.

Other Longs will be converted to the CVS format between March and November, DeAngelis said. There are about 30 in San Diego County, including stores on Melrose Drive in Vista and Twin Oaks Valley Road in San Marcos, and 40 in Riverside County.

The $2.57 billion acquisition of Longs Drug Stores Corp., which closed in October, made Rhode Island-based CVS larger than Walgreen's, which runs 6,600 drugstores from its headquarters in Chicago's northern suburbs.

Thomas and Joseph Long founded Longs as a single drugstore in Oakland in 1938 and later moved its headquarters to Walnut Creek, 15 miles east in suburban Contra Costa County, as the company grew.

The stores had doubled in number since 1993, with locations from Colorado to Hawaii. Longs reported sales of $5.26 billion in its last full fiscal year, which ended on Jan. 31. The company reported having 22,000 employees on that date.

CVS Caremark has grown with similar vigor. The company acquired some 700 standalone Sav-on drugstores in 2006, a move that led CVS to declare itself the market leader in Southern California. The company is expected to report 2008 sales of well over $80 billion. That includes revenue from health-care clinics at about 500 of its drugstores and a division that manages pharmacy benefits.

Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (760) 740-5444 or cbagley@nctimes.com. Bagley blogs about local economic trends at http://bizblogs.nctimes.com.

See also:

CVS Caremark Corp. announces plans to acquire Longs (CVS press release, Aug. 12, 2008)

Store clinics are handy for quick checkups, minor illnesses (NCT, Feb. 3, 2008)

Walgreens Pharmacy proposed in Encinitas (NCT, Nov. 28, 2007)