Herbert Haft

Herbert H. Haft, a combative Washington pharmacist who pioneered discount pricing in drugstores but later became more widely known for aggressive financial maneuvering and a bitter family legal battle for control of a business empire, died in September 2004 in a Washington hospital. He was 84. The cause of death was heart disease, according to his son, Robert. Mr. Haft, who earned a pharmacy degree from George Washington University in 1941, served in both the Army and the Navy during World War II as a supply officer, Mr. Haft's fortune was built on a gutsy battle to overturn laws that prohibited retailers from undercutting prices set by manufacturers for common consumer products. Shortly after opening his first drugstore, Dart Drug, in Washington in 1954, he began sharply cutting prices on toothpaste, cosmetics and over-the-counter drugs. Mr. Haft, who worked side by side with his wife, Gloria, and, later, all three of their children, soon began investing in real estate and in developing shopping centers. He also kept expanding the variety of items sold in the drugstores as the chain grew, and, noticing that auto parts were especially profitable, spun that section off into a discount auto-parts chain named Trak Auto in 1979. At about the same time, with Robert, who had earned an M.B.A. at Harvard, having become second in command, the family created Crown Books, an aggressive discounter that grew to be the third-largest bookstore chain in the 1980's after Barnes & Noble and Waldenbooks. Their fortune was estimated at $500 million to $1 billion. In 1985, Mr. Haft bought a mansion among the embassies on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, tore it down and built a multimillion-dollar home. When the family empire came apart in 1993, the blowup was spectacular. A dispute over strategy and whether Mr. Haft would turn over leadership of the business to Robert escalated into a battle in which Mr. Haft ultimately drove his wife; Robert; and Robert's sister, Linda, out of the business. His 46-year marriage collapsed. The settlement drained Dart Group of tens of millions of dollars. A year later, an equally bitter falling-out with his youngest son, Ronald, his sole ally in the original dispute, deepened the destruction. Most of the family's holdings fell into bankruptcy or were sold. Crown and Trak Auto were shut by subsequent owners.