259 Comments

I remember back in the late 90s and early 2000s when Rite Aid was part of this massive real estate scam. They built stores that they knew would fail simply because there were too many of them and too small in the area. And when they failed, they quickly got into the real estate business. my favorite Asian market where I live in occupies a previous Rite Aid store.

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While taking any of the big boys down gives me a massive Boner, I still don't understand why CVS is being held responsible for filling prescriptions at doctors have written. Do we really not want pharmacists for filling prescriptions made by doctors? I think it's pretty easy to see how this could go south big time. in the wrong hands. I fully admit that I am clearly missing something. What am I missing?

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Edit feature is unavailable. Parse my comment accordingly. Thanks.

Just to reiterate. Pharmacists aren't doctors. Pharmacist don't write prescriptions. Do we really want to put them in the position of denying prescriptions written by doctors?. What if it was for birth control?

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Rite-Aid learned its lesson so well after the lawsuits that it has done a complete 180 and now makes customers (me) jump through hoops to get necessary prescriptions refilled if the Rx recently expired. Fortunately for me, I live in a largish city so it won't be difficult to find a replacement pharmacy.

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"Then CEO John Standley called this an “important strategic transformation.” He’d later move on to the top job at Walgreens, which also suffered significant losses. Standley was honored in January for his “life’s work in the retail industry.”"

Honored by WHO? The National Bankruptcy Lawyers Association?

Also Standley has nowhere to go but CVS now for that coveted trifecta of bankrupting national Pharmacy chains.

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I'm not sad to see them go. Every Rite Aid I've ever been in was almost as though it was explicitly designed to be off putting, even creepy. I can't tell if it was some combination of the lighting, the employees somehow, or what, but every time I left one, I was relieved.

I guess the only one I'll miss is the landmark location on Broadway in Seattle. I hope it gets preserved as a historic property.

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Before Rite Aid screwed it up, it was the Broadway Theater: https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/11447

I agree with you that Rite Aid stores are creepy. Also, I've always been annoyed by their sins against orthography.

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Rite Aid is the K-Mart of CVS's

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Extremely unsure why the dilapetated Rite Aid where I live is not on the shut-down list, but I think I'm bitter becasue the pharmacist there yelled out at me "Make sure you drink lots of water!" as I was walking away after filling a script to treat a UTI and I have never forgiven him for something only I would understand to be embarassing.

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You are the star in your own movie.

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Why do CEO's get bonuses for destroying companies?

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I'd like to question Eddie Lampert about tha at Guantanamo. After being Mnuchin's room-mate at Yale, he's gone on to a career of destroying Sears. He's an Ayn Rand fan-boy, just like Alan Greenspan.

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Just as no good deed goes unpunished, no bad deed goes unrewarded.

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Will this be the end of Thrifty ice cream? :(

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Jeebus- another tale of CEO incompetence and squandering long term potential for short term gain...

Fuck them til they learnz...

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Guys?

Guys.

It's my fault.

I did that.

Earlier this year I bought a bathroom scale at Rite Aid. Got it home and it didn't work because dead battery. I returned it the next day. I requested a new battery for it. They tried to sell me a new battery. I said no, give me a new battery because the package says it is included. They wouldn't give me a new battery, so I demanded a replacement scale instead.

If I'm a retailer, I should know that a $20 scale will cost $18 more than a $2 battery, right? Or Rite? Fuck, they could have added it to their "shrink" and blamed it on theft!

Let them burn.

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The scale you returned is also part of the "shrink" which is why them whining about theft was always bullshit.

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My 22 yr old self shakes fist righteously in triumph. - Encore Books was bought by Right Aid and all of the gay managers were fired by the bastards. I worked in one of the stores at the time and our manager lost his job. it was a clusterfuck of mismanagement and shitty crap. They alienated all of the buyers as well and insulted the wholesalers. They fired all of the buyers while they were at the Atlanta book fair and cancelled their return tickets so they had to buy their own tickets home.

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I'm so sorry to hear this (career bookseller here.) Was Encore Books located in Cali? How did Rite Aid buy a bookshop chain? Understand if you don't want to revisit :(

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Philadelphia area. Small chain of 20? stores? They took a charming local bookstore chain which cared about its customers and endeavored to showcase books beyond the best seller lists. Riteaid went in the polar opposite direction. The Riteaid guy in charge of the chain was an abusive asshole. Used lots of foul language and abusive tactics with book wholesalers.

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I get my scrips filled at Rite Aid, although I don't really have any particular affinity for the company. The one I go to has had their restroom blocked off "out of order" for months.

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Oct 18, 2023Edited
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Mom and pops rule. It was really sad watching Duane Reade take over New York City through the 90s and 2000s. it was both a literal and figurative final blow to the notion of New York neighborhoods. There were dozens of petitions and protests in neighborhoods all around the city fighting to keep their local pharmacies in business. But the assholes won. And soon after the upper West side was gutted of all of their great Latin American restaurants, but at least the bodega's seem to have held. Perhaps because the spaces are too small for corporate interests to be interested

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I love medical pharmacies

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"...pharmacy deserts, which are neighborhoods with an average distance to the nearest pharmacy of one mile or more."

I suppose that this definition has been developed with urban areas in mind, but is ill-suited to many suburban and rural areas. By this definition, I lived the large majority of my 66 years in "pharmacy deserts". As it is, I am currently in a "pharmacy desert" here in The Villages, since the closest pharmacy is about a mile and a half away ( altho" I can get to it in a golf cart - and I don't use that one, anyway ).

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So have you heard, are STDs rampant in the Villages? I do not need to know your own personal info.

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Fifteen miles to the nearest pharmacy from me, a nice mom and pop store. There's a Rite Aid a few miles farther.

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New "Family Pharmacy" opening up at the end of my residential street. About a block away. Nice!

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My village will never be able to support a pharmacy. We barely have a grocery store, but the family pharmacy I deal with "in town" delivers there because one of their techs lives here.

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My 22 yr old self shakes fist righteously in triumph. - Encore Books was bought by Right Aid and all of the gay managers were fired by the bastards. I worked in one of the stores at the time and our manager lost his job. it was a clusterfuck of mismanagement and shitty crap. They alienated all of the buyers as well and insulted the wholesalers. They fired all of the buyers while they were at the Atlanta book fair and cancelled their return tickets so they had to buy their own tickets home.

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Going back to the late 90's while I was working as a territory manager the Rite Aids were steady but never too busy. Since then, I've been in Rite Aid's where I was the only person in the store outside of a pharmacist, a supervisor and a checker. Starting in the early 2000s there was a massive expansion of drug stores: Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aids were popping up like dandelions. I was thinking how many drug stores do they think we need? I have no idea what they thought would be the outcome.

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I think Walgreens was opening a store a day for a little while there. I know that I have like 5 within 5 miles of my house, two of which have been closed for a long time.

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I miscalculated badly. Plugged my Zip into their locator and there are 𝟏𝟐 within five miles of my house

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$$$$ blind.

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Thrifty ice cream might be missed....

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