The Morro Bay and Los Osos Rite Aid stores are among the hundreds of locations that the chain is planning to close, and the pharmacists at both stores say they will stop getting new medications by the end of this week.
“It was a surprise because a lot of people depend on it and like it and you establish relationships,” said Wayne Walcoff, Los Osos resident.
Walcoff has been using the Rite Aid pharmacy in Los Osos for more than 20 years.
“I’m going to be in Rexall. I’m in the process. I just came here to pick up my wife’s medication. She switched over. I'm going to switch over,” Walcoff said.
Rexall Drug and Gift will soon be one of two available pharmacies in Los Osos.
“We have seen so many people upended by the closures, whether it's Morro Bay or Los Osos. We’re trying to take everything that we can, but we’re so small and I don’t have everything that people need. It’s really leaving people in a lurch,” said Jason Tewell, Los Osos Rexall owner.
In the community for 45 years, family-owned Rexall is now trying to deal with a recent surge in prescription requests.
“We actually had to stop taking patients because it was so overwhelming. We took a few hundred on, but there’s 7,000 looking for another pharmacy,” Tewell said. “We were maybe doing 130 to 160 prescriptions a day, and now I’m doing about 160 to 200 a day.”
If you have prescriptions at Ride Aid and don’t want them automatically transferred elsewhere, an employee told KSBY you can contact the pharmacy of your choice and ask them to make the transfer request.
According to court documents filed last week, Rite Aid has now added 100 additional locations to its list of closures after filing for bankruptcy.
“I think it’s just indicative of the kind of thing we’re all dealing with all over the United States,” Walcoff said.
KSBY spoke with pharmacists at both Rite Aids in Morro Bay and Los Osos, and they said their locations will close at the end of the month.
