The CVS pharmacy tucked beneath Venice’s three-story Ballerina Clown is checking out for good on July 1, store staff confirmed, leaving a prominent corner at Rose Avenue and Main Street without its familiar drugstore anchor. Customers have been told that prescriptions will move to another Westside CVS, and employees were informed they would be offered similar roles within the company. The closure pulls a longtime retail tenant out from under one of Venice’s most recognizable pieces of public art.
Store says staff and prescriptions will move
According to the Santa Monica Mirror, the store notified customers that prescription records will be transferred to the CVS at 119 S. Lincoln Boulevard, and the Venice location will shutter on July 1. A store manager told the paper the decision "has nothing to do with the statue," cutting off any conspiracy theories about the towering clown-ballerina overhead. An agent for Par Commercial Brokerage, which manages the Venice Renaissance retail spaces, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The New York Post also reported that CVS said affected employees would be offered similar roles elsewhere in the chain.
About the Ballerina Clown
Jonathan Borofsky's 30-foot "Ballerina Clown," often nicknamed Clownerina, has loomed over the corner since it was installed in 1989 as part of the Venice Renaissance project. As detailed by SFGate, the half-clown, half-ballet figure was designed to bottle Venice’s street-performance spirit into a single spinning leg. That leg used to kick on a motorized loop until years of complaints from neighbors finally got the mechanism shut off. Atlas Obscura lists the sculpture as a Venice landmark and notes that it perches directly above the CVS entrance, which has made the pharmacy a kind of default meeting spot for locals and tourists.
What comes next for the corner
In a statement to the New York Post, a CVS spokesperson said maintaining access to pharmacy services is one of the key factors in deciding which stores close, a nod to the effort to keep prescriptions accessible at the Lincoln Boulevard location. With medications slated to transfer nearby and staff reportedly offered roles at other CVS stores, the practical fallout for regular customers may be relatively mild, even if the neighborhood loses a convenient grab-and-go spot for basics. The departure still leaves a highly visible retail bay open in a busy mixed-use block, and Par Commercial Brokerage has not yet commented on what might replace the pharmacy beneath Borofsky’s giant clown in pointe shoes.
For now, the Ballerina Clown is staying put, a very conspicuous bystander to whatever takes over the corner below. We will update this story if CVS or the building’s managers share more details or a timeline for what comes next.
