BRATTLEBORO-Rite Aid expects to close or sell off all five of its Vermont locations, including one on Canal Street, as the struggling national pharmacy chain goes through bankruptcy proceedings.
In court filings, the company has said it plans to wind down operations at the more than 1,200 drugstores it operates nationwide in the coming months.
Other locations include Bethel, Randolph, Springfield, and Windsor.
According to court documents, Rite Aid is actively trying to auction off rather than immediately shutter many of its locations, and it's possible some or even all of the Vermont locations could remain open under the auspices of another pharmacy brand.
For now, Rite Aid has said, locations will stop taking on new retail inventory while transferring prescriptions to other nearby pharmacies when possible as the company attempts to sell off its assets.
In a widely circulated Facebook post, Samuel D. Spahr, pharmacy manager for the Brattleboro store, said that the fate of the five stores will most likely be known by May 21.
"It's all very uncertain," said Sandy Rosa, executive director of the Vermont Pharmacists Association. "It's really kind of frightening. This is not good for the people of Vermont for pharmacy access."
Indeed, if the Vermont locations do not change hands, the resulting closures could have dire implications for parts of the state that already have severely limited access to the medicine and health care provided by pharmacies.
Currently, the Rite Aid drugstores are the only pharmacies operating in both Bethel and Windsor, and the locations' closure meaning both towns would likely become pharmacy deserts.
"Patients are going to be really up a creek, as it were," Rosa said. "It'll take a while in terms of a transition, but it's going to be fraught."
As Vermont's independent pharmacies have shuttered their doors and large chains like CVS and Walgreens have closed thousands of locations nationwide, pharmacy access is becoming a struggle in more of the state.
According to the state's Board of Pharmacy, 28 pharmacies permanently closed in Vermont between 2019 and 2024. And already this year, Walgreens has shuttered at least three drugstores in Burlington, Newport, and Montpelier.
Rite Aid of Vermont Inc. is one 118 subsidiary companies that filed en masse on May 5 for chapter 11 bankruptcy, which would give the company relief as it reorganizes and restructures for profitability.
For now, according to Spahr, the "worst case scenario is we have 14 day notice of closure," he wrote. "Right now we still offer 99% of pharmacy services, and there's minimal reason to panic/transfer."
"Our job is to take care of you all, and to make sure everyone in our community gets the health services they need," he posted. "If things turn out in a closure, we will have notice, and focus all of our energy on helping facilitate the continued access to medications for our patients."
This story was republished with permission from VTDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To support this work, please visit vtdigger.org/donate. Additional reporting by The Commons.
This News item by Habib Sabet originally appeared in VTDigger and was republished in The Commons with permission.