Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

[Alpha8472]

Prescriptions for Schedule 2 Prescriptions such as Norco, Vicodin, Morphine, Adderall, Ritalin, etc. cannot leave the state. Arizona will not accept any of those Prescriptions from California. You would have to travel to another California pharmacy or see an Arizona Doctor and fill the prescription in Arizona.

If a pharmacy closes in California, those prescriptions cannot be transferred to another pharmacy in California or outside of California. So your prescription is worthless and lost forever.

[storewanderer]

Prescriptions for Schedule 2 Prescriptions such as Norco, Vicodin, Morphine, Adderall, Ritalin, etc. cannot leave the state. Arizona will not accept any of those Prescriptions from California. You would have to travel to another California pharmacy or see an Arizona Doctor and fill the prescription in Arizona.

If a pharmacy closes in California, those prescriptions cannot be transferred to another pharmacy in California or outside of California. So your prescription is worthless and lost forever.

So... that is very bad for the people who live in Needles and need those Schedule 2 prescriptions. So they really will have to drive to Blythe or elsewhere in CA that is 1.5-2 hours away. Getting an AZ doctor would be the easier solution. Is there any legal issue with getting an AZ doctor/filling in AZ then carrying it over state lines? Also the issue of using a CA insurance in AZ, may be an issue. There is a hospital in Needles, I assume it has some kind of a pharmacy inside, maybe they can work something out to service the public.

This Rite Aid closure is a very bad thing for Needles. Rite Aid is really leaving those residents in a bad situation. It is not good to have to drive 1.5-2 hours for a Schedule 2 prescription. I don't want to pass judgment but I am thinking folks who need those, are really not going to be looking forward to having to drive so far.

Rite Aid has somewhat of a similar isolated location up in Alturas. I have not been there in many years. It was new build around 2007 or 2008. Alturas was supposed to turn into a big retirement community for people from all over CA but it never quite took off as such. There is a new independent pharmacy in Alturas that opened recently. The Rite Aid only opens its pharmacy Monday-Friday.

[Alpha8472]

It is usually fine to fill prescriptions in person at pharmacies and carry them over state lines as long as you have the bottles with the prescription labels with a name on it. If you have a large quantity of Vicodin, Norco, Morphine, etc. without a prescription label or in little plastic bags and you get pulled over by the police, the police can ask for proof of a prescription or a prescription bottle with a label with your name and medication name.

However if a customer is low income and only has California State Medi-Cal. Medi-Cal only pays for prescriptions at pharmacies in California. Customers would have to pay full price for prescriptions in Arizona or travel to another pharmacy in California.

Mail order pharmacies usually do not fill or mail Controlled substances: for example, Valium, Vicodin, Norco, etc. These types of medications need to be picked up in person with photo ID.

[Romr123]

Believe I'd heard problems several years ago in Needles for women on WIC and no appropriate retailer on the California side---there were some hurdles for Bullhead City stores to accept some types of aid like that.

[storewanderer]

Believe I'd heard problems several years ago in Needles for women on WIC and no appropriate retailer on the California side---there were some hurdles for Bullhead City stores to accept some types of aid like that.

There are very limited retailers outside CA that accept CA WIC.

In Reno, a few Raleys locations used to accept it. Nobody else. I never understood why and why those stores only.

In Incline Village Raleys accepts it, In Zephyr Cove Safeway accepts it. In Gardnerville both Smiths and Raleys accept it. In Pahrump Smiths accepts it. In Bullhead City and Fort Mohave, both Safeway and Smiths accept it.

It is interesting how they came to these very limited number of stores accepting it near state lines. Whereas if you are in CA pretty much any grocery store, Target, Wal Mart accepts.

Maybe the issue in AZ was the preferred store of the WIC recipient was not on the list (probably Wal Mart).

[jamcool]

Prescriptions for Schedule 2 Prescriptions such as Norco, Vicodin, Morphine, Adderall, Ritalin, etc. cannot leave the state. Arizona will not accept any of those Prescriptions from California. You would have to travel to another California pharmacy or see an Arizona Doctor and fill the prescription in Arizona.

If a pharmacy closes in California, those prescriptions cannot be transferred to another pharmacy in California or outside of California. So your prescription is worthless and lost forever.

So... that is very bad for the people who live in Needles and need those Schedule 2 prescriptions. So they really will have to drive to Blythe or elsewhere in CA that is 1.5-2 hours away. Getting an AZ doctor would be the easier solution. Is there any legal issue with getting an AZ doctor/filling in AZ then carrying it over state lines? Also the issue of using a CA insurance in AZ, may be an issue. There is a hospital in Needles, I assume it has some kind of a pharmacy inside, maybe they can work something out to service the public.

This Rite Aid closure is a very bad thing for Needles. Rite Aid is really leaving those residents in a bad situation. It is not good to have to drive 1.5-2 hours for a Schedule 2 prescription. I don't want to pass judgment but I am thinking folks who need those, are really not going to be looking forward to having to drive so far.

Rite Aid has somewhat of a similar isolated location up in Alturas. I have not been there in many years. It was new build around 2007 or 2008. Alturas was supposed to turn into a big retirement community for people from all over CA but it never quite took off as such. There is a new independent pharmacy in Alturas that opened recently. The Rite Aid only opens its pharmacy Monday-Friday.

Needles and Blythe have the same retail situation…both are too far away from the SoCal chains to supply stores in those towns-like Stater or Ralphs, or even the Phoenix chains…although Albertsons has a store in Blythe which I imagine is probably on the same supply run as the Safeways in Yuma. And there was a KMart in Blythe until a few years ago.

[storewanderer]

Blythe Albertsons is a SoCal store. So Cal Albertsons went into a number of strange and remote locations in the early 90s. They could not compete effectively with other chains for sites in the more dense areas to meet their expansion goals since SoCal in that time period had many chains going after sites, so this was their solution. I think it has worked out quite well for them.

Yuma Albertsons are Southwest Division Stores. Safeway pulled out of Yuma long ago.

Now that Smiths has full distribution in Las Vegas including perishables it is obvious who should be supplying stores in places like Needles and Blythe. But the various CA rules will probably stop that from ever happening.

[storewanderer]

The Woodland, CA distribution center was told it is closing today. They are moving all functions to Lancaster, CA. Lancaster is a larger more modern facility than Woodland however geographically I don't know how this will work. Maybe at this point the CA footprint of Rite Aid is very similar to the Thrifty footprint from 1992-1996 and at that time Thrifty only had distribution in SoCal and followed this basic geography roughly speaking with stores in remote areas far north also (they previously had distribution in Sparks, NV for NorCal- closed it in 1992).

This combined with the Wilsonville, OR distribution center closing and having functions relocated to Des Moines, WA seems to leave a number of NorCal/OR Stores very far from distribution. Rite Aid is no stranger to having small blocks of stores very far from distribution- they ran stores in CO/UT for years supplying from either CA or OR.

The worst distances from Lancaster, CA for some of the remote stores they've kept open:
Crescent City, CA 12 hours (Des Moines is only 8 hours- maybe they will serve this store from there)
Yreka, CA 9.5 hours (Des Moines is only 8 hours)
Alturas, CA 9.5 hours (Des Moines is 9 hours)
Quincy, CA 8.5 hours (Des Moines is 11.5 hours)
Burney, CA - complete toss up- just over 9 hours from either Lancaster or Des Moines
Eureka, CA/Fortuna, CA/Arcata, CA - again complete toss up around 10 hours from either Lancaster or Des Moines

[HCal]

Now that Smiths has full distribution in Las Vegas including perishables it is obvious who should be supplying stores in places like Needles and Blythe. But the various CA rules will probably stop that from ever happening.

What rules are you referring to? Other than perhaps animal welfare standards for meat, I can't think of any issues. If the cost savings are really that significant, it should be worth it to supply the stores from Vegas and get a local supplier for a few products.

[storewanderer]

Now that Smiths has full distribution in Las Vegas including perishables it is obvious who should be supplying stores in places like Needles and Blythe. But the various CA rules will probably stop that from ever happening.

What rules are you referring to? Other than perhaps animal welfare standards for meat, I can't think of any issues. If the cost savings are really that significant, it should be worth it to supply the stores from Vegas and get a local supplier for a few products.

The meat is the biggest one from a cost perspective. Eggs won't be an issue anymore as AZ cage free goes into effect in 2025. The Proposition 65 warning labels are also a big one and some (not all) companies who have to put that on their products have special packaging for CA only with that warning.

But the bigger problem that is upcoming the packaging laws that impact various single use packages which will create a situation where packaging will be specific to CA for various products. This will significantly increase costs for CA-only packaging on various goods. Some brands that are less price sensitive will likely move to the CA-compliant packaging everywhere. I am sure CA also hopes surrounding states pick up the law too, to help give them cover on how much this will increase costs for consumers but as things go half of the country won't pick up this law. I like the aspect of the law that tries to push additional recycling but know the costs will just get passed on to the consumer because that is how it works.

There is no local supplier in Needles/Blythe that is much if at all closer than Albertsons SoCal distribution. That "local supplier" would be UNFI/Supervalu in some Los Angeles suburb.