The Rite Aid in Snohomish at Maple and Pine avenues.
Photo by Michael Whitney.
Hobbled pharmacy Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy a second time May 5. This time, everything’s up for grabs.
America’s No. 4 drugstore is selling off the unexpired leases of nearly all of its 1,240 stores and selling its headquarters as part of voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“Rite Aid is working to facilitate a smooth transfer of customer prescriptions to other pharmacies,” the company said.
For Monroe, losing the 16,800-square-foot Rite Aid would close the city’s largest pharmacy. Independent pharmacy Pharm-A-Save Monroe transferred its prescription files to Rite Aid when it closed in December 2023.
Rite Aid and Bartell Drugs stores will cease to honor store gift cards or accept any return or exchanges on June 5.
It has 95 stores in Washington state. It bought the independent Bartell Drugs chain in 2020.
Chapter 11 is a restructuring to avoid Chapter 7 insolvency, but functionally it is Rite Aid’s death knell. The company had its first bankruptcy in fall 2023 and cut nearly half its near-2,100 store count.
Government-led opioid prescription lawsuits hit all major pharmacy chains. Rite Aid, though, lagged behind Walgreens and CVS in size and its ability to pay, and the company carried a large amount of debt.
Rite Aid’s Snohomish building at Pine Avenue and Second Street was built in 1958. It housed the Safeway before that moved to Second and Maple in 1974. It also was a Sprouse-Reitz variety store and later a PayLess Drugs, a West Coast chain which Rite Aid acquired in 1996.
