Rite Aid closures in Michigan gain speed; 123 stores added since mid-June

• Rite Aid has closed hundreds of stores nationwide since filing for bankruptcy in October
• Court documents reveal that as of Monday, Rite Aid has laid out plans to close 192 Michigan stores
• The closings hit cities and small towns, from Michigan southern edge to its Upper Peninsula.

LAMBERTVILLE — The number of Rite Aid stores slated to close in Michigan continues to grow as the troubled drugstore chain has apparently shifted its restructuring efforts to the state, as well as to neighboring Ohio.

A Bridge review of bankruptcy court documents reveals that since October, the drugstore chain has marked 192 stores in Michigan for closing.

The latest round of documents, posted Friday and Monday, lay out 29 Michigan stores — around Detroit, Ann Arbor, Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing and Up North as far as Cedar Springs north of Traverse City — that will be shuttered.

It’s part of an ongoing restructuring effort for the chain.

After filing for bankruptcy in October Rite Aid began shedding underperforming stores — more than 500 altogether, according to Bridge’s review and another analysis. 

For several months, more than a dozen states shared that pain as stores were identified for closing in court documents — among them California and other West Coast states, New York and surrounding states and Pennsylvania.

Related:

• June 18: 12 more Rite Aid stores closing in Michigan, the latest for bankrupt chain
• June 21: Rite Aid sends mixed messages as Michigan braces for more closures

But by mid-June, however, Rite Aid had shifted liquidation efforts to Ohio and Michigan. Court documents filed since then lay out closure plans for 123 Michigan Rite Aid sites.

As of Wednesday, the chain’s web site still listed 184 Michigan stores, but many already had posted large “Store Closing” and “Entire Store” sale signs on their exteriors.

In the Lambertville store in southeast Michigan, several shelves Tuesday were bare and a sign on the door advertised that even the furniture must go. Prescriptions have been moved across the street to a Walgreens location, another sign alerted customers.

Store manager Crystal Martinez spent the morning Tuesday marking new 50% off signs in preparation of deeper markdowns Thursday.

A local couple and their adult daughter were checking out sale items, even as Martinez marked the signs with a black permanent marker.

“Good luck with everything,” the mother said, as she left the store.

An 18-year employee and mother of two, Martinez said she helped close a Rite Aid in Adrian last fall, even as Christmas decorations began arriving for the shelves. Now as store manager of a second soon-to-be-shuttered store, she’s at a bit of a loss about what happens next.

Given market pressures and online prescriptions and retail, she doesn’t blame Rite Aid as a national chain in declaring bankruptcy. Still, employees and customers remain stunned, she said.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do now. I’m not sure any of us do,” she said.

The most recent filings for Rite Aid’s bankruptcy case focus closure efforts on stores in Ohio and Michigan.

Larger Michigan cities will lose multiple locations. Twenty-six of the stores are in five cities — Detroit (6), Flint (6), Lansing (5) Saginaw (5) and Flint Traverse City (4).

A Rite Aid statement to Bridge made clear the chain’s efforts to survive, even as news reports and a Bridge interview with a union leader representing four dozen stores, suggest that all Michigan stores will close.

“While we have had to make difficult business decisions over the past several months to improve our business and optimize our retail footprint, we are committed to becoming financially and operationally healthy,” read the statement, sent to Bridge Friday evening.

Sadness and anger: ‘I can’t leave my team’ 

“I feel like we’re the sacrificial lambs so that other stores can survive,” Martinez in Lambertville said, her marker scribbling across 50% discount signs.

Rite Aid began in Scranton, Pa, more than 60 years ago, but had struggled in recent years. 

A U.S. bankruptcy judge in June approved its restructuring plan, which will allow the chain to cut $2 billion in debt. The company expects to emerge from bankruptcy with about 1,300 sites from its more than 2,000 locations, according to several news reports.

For employees who are left, it’s a mix of sadness and anger, said Diane Bartes, store manager at a Mount Morris location, just north of Flint.

Personal time off and vacation time have been frozen, she said. Bartes, herself, feels torn between staying for her team until the final day — or searching for another job.

Some staff had suggested a parking lot party once the building is locked a final time. She’s not so sure that will happen.

“I think we’re just ready to be done with it. A lot of people are jumping ship, but I feel like I can’t leave my team,” said Bartes, who said she has worked at Rite Aid for about four years.

Pharmacies have struggled in recent years against falling reimbursements and benefits managers that take an increasing cut of revenues, Eric Roath, director of government affairs of the Michigan Pharmacists Association, previously told Bridge.

Those closures mean fewer options for patients, especially those with complex medical conditions that make travel a challenge, he said.

The chain, like its rivals, also had faced lawsuits over its distribution of opioid painkillers. Among its accusers, in a complaint filed last year, was the U.S. Justice Department.