A place which... /A place where...

 

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Recently I heard a junior high school student define a drugstore as a "place where sells medicine."  Now just a minute, there's something wrong here. Please look at these 2 sentences:

1) A drugstore is a shop which/that sells medicine.

3) A drugstore is a shop where they sell medicine.

Note: toiletries means things that we use for washing (soap, toothpaste, shampoo etc.)

Do you see the difference? The sentences are very similar, but there is a grammatical difference:
In Sentence 1, the drugstore sells the medicine and toiletries.
In Sentence 2, they (the drugstore's staff) sell the medicine and toiletries.
We can add a third sentence:

3. A drugstore is a place where you can buy medicines, toiletries, and other things.

Sentence 1 tells us what a drugstore does; Sentences 2 and 3 tell us what happens in a drugstore, or what people do in a drugstore.

Let's look at some other examples:

• A bakery is a place which/that makes and sells bread.

• A bakery is a place where people can buy bread.

 

• A hospital is a place which/that treats sick people.

• A hospital is a place where sick people can receive treatment.