Another local Bartell Drugs will close its doors
Aug 6, 2024, 1:53 PM | Updated: Oct 8, 2024, 10:51 am
Western Washington is losing another Bartell Drugs store.
The Bartells at 18420 Aurora Avenue North in Shoreline will close on August 20, according to The Seattle Times.
A spokesperson for Rite Aid, the company that acquired Bartell Drugs in 2020 for $95 million, confirmed the closure to The Times last week. An employee said Shoreline pharmacy orders will be redirected to Edmonds.
More here: Rite Aid to close 11 Wash. stores, including 5 Bartell Drugs locations
In June, USA Today reported that Rite Aid has identified and closed more than 500 stores nationwide.
In October, Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy to swim out of billions of dollars of debt. According to CNN, over the past six years, Rite Aid has tallied nearly $3 billion in losses. In 2022, Rite Aid settled for approximately $30 million to resolve lawsuits alleging pharmacies contributed to an oversupply of prescription opioids.
Rite Aid said in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing the company lost about $1.3 billion in the first half of its fiscal year. That’s more than double the $441 million it lost in the same period during the previous fiscal year.
The Shoreline location will join a list of Bartells that have closed around the area including in Seattle, Lynnwood, Bellevue, Redmond, Renton, Mill Creek, Burien, Everett, Lacey and Graham.
Last December, the final remaining Bartells in Seattle closed at the downtown location on 5th Avenue and Olive Way
More details: Bartell Drugs name now gone from downtown Seattle
Bartell Drugs’ website shows 41 stores are left in Washington, including the one in Shoreline. Rite Aid’s website shows 99 stores are left in the state.
Pharmacy closures can significantly impact rural communities
The Associated Press reported (AP), in June, that as pharmacies close, rural communities get left behind.
“That trust, you just can’t quantify it,” Omolola Adepoju, a University of Houston health services researcher, told The AP. “And I don’t think it gets spoken about enough when we talk about pharmacy closures.”
According to The AP, there’s a pattern to who has access to pharmacies, with gaps forming in urban and rural neighborhoods.
The AP analyzed data from 49 states and found those with the fewest retail pharmacies per capita include Alaska, Oregon and New Mexico. To see a map of pharmacy access in each state, visit The AP’s website.
Contributing: Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest; The Associated Press
Julia Dallas is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read her stories here. Follow Julia on X here and email her here.
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