Brentwood Rite Aid Among 4 LI Stores Slated For Closure

BRENTWOOD, NY — Following numerous nationwide closures, Rite Aid will soon close four Long Island locations including stores in Brentwood, Lake Ronkonkoma, Huntington Station and East Meadow, new bankruptcy court documents show.

The latest closures come after Rite Aid shuttered roughly 200 stores across the country after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year. Since then, Rite Aid said it would close 431 stores.

According to the pharmacy chain, the closures are based on location performance.

"Rite Aid regularly assesses its retail footprint to ensure we are operating efficiently while meeting the needs of our customers, communities, associates and overall business," a Rite Aid rep told Patch. "In connection with the court-supervised process, we notified the Court of certain underperforming stores we are closing to further reduce rent expense and strengthen overall financial performance."

Customers will still be able to get their prescriptions, but at a new location.

Rite Aid told Patch the store "works seamlessly to transfer their prescriptions to ensure there is no disruption of service," which includes transferring prescription to another Rite Aid or nearby pharmacy.

Meanwhile, employees of the stores set to close can be transferred to other Rite Aid locations "where possible," the company said.

"Seventy-five percent of our associates have accepted opportunities to transfer locations if their store has been or is part of the ongoing store closures," the rep told Patch.

The Philadelphia-based company has been reporting losses for several years and, like its competitors, faces financial risk from lawsuits over opioid prescriptions.

The chain said on its website it has 1,704 stores in the United States. That number was about 4,600 in 2013, according to Business Insider. About 2,000 stores were sold to Walgreens in 2017 after a deal to sell the drugstore chain to its rival was nixed by federal regulators.

Do more Long Island Rite Aids face closure?

"At this time, we have not made or confirmed any decisions on additional specific store closures as part of our financial restructuring process," the company said.

The Long Island stores slated for closure include:

• 139 Ronkonkoma Avenue, Lake Ronkonkoma
• 283 West Jericho Turnpike, Huntington Station
• 1910 Hempstead Turnpike, East Meadow
• 1825 Brentwood Road, Brentwood