heart of lower manhattan, hudson square pharmacy is your quintessential neighborhood drugstore, and alan solmanonvince associate neighborhood pharmacist. >> i've been in this business since the late '70s when i was a stock boy at a local neighborhood pharmacy. ended up going to pharmacy school, graduated in '81, and i've been a pharmacist since then. >> reporter: but where customers depend on him for everything from medicine to face creams to baby products, he's felt the pinch of inflation in every part of his business. you deal in goods that are necessities for people? >> correct. >> how is that impacting your customer? >> they are pretty nervous about having to get certain medications. there's shortages of a lot of medication. and instead of giving people the service of getting medication the same day, the next day, it may take a week or two. >> what's happened to labor here, to the number of people that you employ? >> since covid, we've greatly cut down on our staff. i've had to lay off a pharmacist, so i'm working a lot more hours. we only have one person at the registerso we've cut our sta