The reasons given in the press are that Rite Aid was hit particularly hard in litigation that pursued prescription drug abuse. Somehow, the drugstores were supposed to be the traffic cop and refuse to fill prescriptions filled out by doctors.
If the economy was strong Rite Aid would not be shrinking its market footprint.
"Shrinking" is rite, all rite. This chain, along with other MULO pharmacy operations, has suffered massive retail shrinkage. Looks like failure to prosecute has real world implications.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't Walgreens own this brand?
ReplyDeleteWalgreens bought a bunch of Rite Aid stores, but their merger did not happen. Rite Aid is currently operating in bankruptcy and shedding stores like a dog sheds fleas.
ReplyDeleteAn article from 08 August notes at that time Rite Aid was closing 690 stores - including all 188 in Michigan.
ReplyDeleteIn a small city near me, we stopped into a drug store, and noted almost everything was behind locked cases. Shampoo, deodorant, OTC cough syrup, etc. the employee said they had a high rate of theft and this was normal for many stores.
ReplyDeleteShoplifting is not prosecuted. The inmates run the asylum. Glad I don’t live in these places.
Southern NH
Depends which state you're in as to whether things are locked up or not. I know in Texas, they have Loss Prevention guys walking around random stores, disguised as customers waiting for someone to try and steal something. I saw one LP guy jack a wino up for trying to steal a bottle of wine. And in Florida the store managers will chase a thief down to get pilfered merchandise back.
DeleteBut then, stores in blue states, I've watched thieves stare a manager or employee down as they walk out of the store with their stolen plunder and have to stand idly by because I wasn't allowed to interfere unless there was the threat of bodily harm.
These big conglomerates like CVS and Walgreens have been buying up other brands as well as local small town Mom and Pop pharmacies for decades. Before I retired, one of my jobs as a site superintendent for a CVS preferred contractor, was to go in after purchase and rebrand the store, usually a temporary fix until a brand new CVS could be built. In addition I also did ADA compliance work after CVS got sued for lack of disability accomodations such as parking lot access and restroom access, among other things.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these pharmacy giants have around 10,000 stores each.
We lost two Three Rite Aid stores in my podunk Western town. Walgreens owns Rite Aid, and closed every store that had a Walgreens presence nearby. All the people who had their prescriptions filled at one of these stores, myself included, had their accounts ported over to the nearest Walgreens. No one told us this. We just went to the Rite Aid and found it boarded up. No one told the pharmacists at the nearby Walgreens, who found themselves suddenly inundated with customers from the shuttered Rite Aid. The old Rite Aid property is now a bum camp, brought to us by Gavin Newsom...
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