Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

[storewanderer]

I haven't seen anyone who appeared to be in management, but they don't really have any room to adjust here. There are probably less than 50 feet of coolers/freezers here, so expanding beer would eliminate soda and so on. The compact fixtures really limit the capacity and depth of SKUs. The store is so small I'm guessing there is little to no backroom to speak of either, I'm sure everything is on the floor. I'd just hate to be in their shoes running this little convenience store with pharmacy. They're screwed by store design. Hopefully now that this concept should be gone like the former CEO maybe they'll go fix the few locations it was applied to and get them to the Wellness format assortment.

But I have to wonder if this store will ultimately be doomed. The state of California, despite their self declared housing shortage, decided to redo their fire hazard maps. Nearly every new development in the area of this store is now "Very High Severity Fire Hazard Zone" which basically translates to nearly impossible to get insurance. Homeowners in the areas added to these maps are screwed as their insurers are going to start canceling left and right. Developers are even worse off because A) They're going to get sued by home buyers who just moved into these new "safe" homes only to now learn they're unsafe, and B) They can't get insurance either to build/complete their developments. So home building on that neighborhood is going to grind to a halt. Apparently lots of Eastern Murrieta, Temecula, Menifee and parts of Riverside etc. are now very high risk fire severity. I'm all for keeping people safe, but why did it take the state so long to figure out these were very dangerous areas? I wonder if the state winds up getting sued and having to buy back all these new homes. No matter what, these were the few fast growing areas of SoCal and they're about to come crashing to a halt. I find it interesting that I am not in a fire severity zone at all, but 3/4 of a mile away it jumps to the highest level of severity. I feel pretty safe where I'm at, mainly because all the hills burned about five years ago here and the decades of thick brush that fuel major wildfires all burned away leaving a broad, open flat landscape.

I shouldn't go off topic. However, this may be a ploy by State of California in conjunction with the insurance industry to try to get people back into/closer to the major cities who have been leaving the cities to move to areas like this. Conversely this may be a way to take these people who moved out to these areas to "save money" and screw them over with higher insurance premiums so suddenly they don't save as much money anymore. I hate to be cynical like this but... yeah. Increased insurance costs have been a huge problem in rural NorCal (for obvious reasons) but people continue to find a way/make a way to stay and real estate values have not really depressed as I expected them to. The fire risk areas that already had depressed real estate values stayed depressed and the fire risk areas that were hot real estate markets are still hot hot hot.

[storewanderer]

I tried my best not to mention that 6661 Auburn closure when it was reported internally almost a month ago.Based on occasional personal experiences there(and the fact that it has traditionally been the strongest performer of the Citrus Heights locations for years),this closure clearly has 'obscene rent hike' written all over it.Clearly property managers that own RAD-occupied buildings are taking notice of the shaky state of the company.This was an RA-1 that opened around August 1999(replacing a former Thrifty in Creekside Center on Greenback which is now a Grocery Outlet,ironically the original supermarket in that center was an Alpha Beta which became the IGA-affiliated River City Market and is now a Petco)and the lease is likely expiring next year.

Based on 1999 that seems to allude to a lease spanning 25 years about to end on 6661 Auburn. I sure hope we don't see that pop up on the surplus list with a lease ending in 2029 (10 year terms).

If the building quickly reoccupies I guess that will say something. I am just not really sure this particular building will quickly reoccupy.

[veteran+]

I don't think the store is getting any business at all, pharmacy or front end. Grocery Outlet seems to have over-stored the Temecula Valley, there are at least two other locations within a ten minute drive in Murrieta/Wildomar and I think the same franchisee is running all three. Grocery Outlet is doing good volume here although I'm not impressed with the operation in the area as their standards are more lax than I'm used to for them. All three have a much larger than usual assortment of Asian foods, taking advantage of the need for an HMart or 99 Ranch in the Temecula Valley.

Liquor is an incredible missed opportunity in this store. I think they have less than 50 linear feet total of alcohol, plus maybe two cooler doors of beer. I'll make my joke again, they have the equivalent selection of 7-Eleven. I wonder how it'll work out in a few months when they finish constructing a brand new 7-Eleven literally out the front door? The food and beverage selection is about the same size between both stores, and with Rite Aid's crazy high pricing if I was over there needing a snack I would just go to 7-Eleven and pray that they decided to clean the store that day.

Rite Aid has lower everyday shelf pricing in the candy/soda category than CVS and Walgreens have on virtually every SKU... and certainly lower than 7-Eleven. Walgreens does give some better deals on some grocery/paper SKUs though. Grocery Outlet would absolutely be cheaper (unless you hit a sale price at Rite Aid or Walgreens). CVS does very little sale/promotion on small snack items anymore.

Hopefully Rite Aid will quickly straighten this store out and get a mix into the place that is more consistent with other stores. Have you given any feedback to the store manager and seen how they respond? I would assume the manager comes from a store with a larger mix and hopefully has some opinions that someone higher will actually listen to. Do they even have cooler space to expand the beer or did they basically screw that idea over with their store design?

Grocery Outlets really vary by operator. I wonder how one franchisee gets 3 stores. We have a situation here where they have a husband with 1 store and his wife with a second store, but then one store they also have a store manager placed there and if you didn't know it you'd assume he was the owner with how he does things (I assume he will get his own unit eventually), and basically that is how they get away with that arrangement. I regularly see both the husband and/or wife franchisee in both stores.

I haven't seen anyone who appeared to be in management, but they don't really have any room to adjust here. There are probably less than 50 feet of coolers/freezers here, so expanding beer would eliminate soda and so on. The compact fixtures really limit the capacity and depth of SKUs. The store is so small I'm guessing there is little to no backroom to speak of either, I'm sure everything is on the floor. I'd just hate to be in their shoes running this little convenience store with pharmacy. They're screwed by store design. Hopefully now that this concept should be gone like the former CEO maybe they'll go fix the few locations it was applied to and get them to the Wellness format assortment.

But I have to wonder if this store will ultimately be doomed. The state of California, despite their self declared housing shortage, decided to redo their fire hazard maps. Nearly every new development in the area of this store is now "Very High Severity Fire Hazard Zone" which basically translates to nearly impossible to get insurance. Homeowners in the areas added to these maps are screwed as their insurers are going to start canceling left and right. Developers are even worse off because A) They're going to get sued by home buyers who just moved into these new "safe" homes only to now learn they're unsafe, and B) They can't get insurance either to build/complete their developments. So home building on that neighborhood is going to grind to a halt. Apparently lots of Eastern Murrieta, Temecula, Menifee and parts of Riverside etc. are now very high risk fire severity. I'm all for keeping people safe, but why did it take the state so long to figure out these were very dangerous areas? I wonder if the state winds up getting sued and having to buy back all these new homes. No matter what, these were the few fast growing areas of SoCal and they're about to come crashing to a halt. I find it interesting that I am not in a fire severity zone at all, but 3/4 of a mile away it jumps to the highest level of severity. I feel pretty safe where I'm at, mainly because all the hills burned about five years ago here and the decades of thick brush that fuel major wildfires all burned away leaving a broad, open flat landscape.

I live in the hills of West Hollywood and my treasured insurance company, AMICA, canceled me 3 years ago because I was in a HIGHEST risk fire path. To my knowledge, I have never heard of a siginificant fire since 1984 in this area. I had to go with USAA for coverage.

[veteran+]

I haven't seen anyone who appeared to be in management, but they don't really have any room to adjust here. There are probably less than 50 feet of coolers/freezers here, so expanding beer would eliminate soda and so on. The compact fixtures really limit the capacity and depth of SKUs. The store is so small I'm guessing there is little to no backroom to speak of either, I'm sure everything is on the floor. I'd just hate to be in their shoes running this little convenience store with pharmacy. They're screwed by store design. Hopefully now that this concept should be gone like the former CEO maybe they'll go fix the few locations it was applied to and get them to the Wellness format assortment.

But I have to wonder if this store will ultimately be doomed. The state of California, despite their self declared housing shortage, decided to redo their fire hazard maps. Nearly every new development in the area of this store is now "Very High Severity Fire Hazard Zone" which basically translates to nearly impossible to get insurance. Homeowners in the areas added to these maps are screwed as their insurers are going to start canceling left and right. Developers are even worse off because A) They're going to get sued by home buyers who just moved into these new "safe" homes only to now learn they're unsafe, and B) They can't get insurance either to build/complete their developments. So home building on that neighborhood is going to grind to a halt. Apparently lots of Eastern Murrieta, Temecula, Menifee and parts of Riverside etc. are now very high risk fire severity. I'm all for keeping people safe, but why did it take the state so long to figure out these were very dangerous areas? I wonder if the state winds up getting sued and having to buy back all these new homes. No matter what, these were the few fast growing areas of SoCal and they're about to come crashing to a halt. I find it interesting that I am not in a fire severity zone at all, but 3/4 of a mile away it jumps to the highest level of severity. I feel pretty safe where I'm at, mainly because all the hills burned about five years ago here and the decades of thick brush that fuel major wildfires all burned away leaving a broad, open flat landscape.

I shouldn't go off topic. However, this may be a ploy by State of California in conjunction with the insurance industry to try to get people back into/closer to the major cities who have been leaving the cities to move to areas like this. Conversely this may be a way to take these people who moved out to these areas to "save money" and screw them over with higher insurance premiums so suddenly they don't save as much money anymore. I hate to be cynical like this but... yeah. Increased insurance costs have been a huge problem in rural NorCal (for obvious reasons) but people continue to find a way/make a way to stay and real estate values have not really depressed as I expected them to. The fire risk areas that already had depressed real estate values stayed depressed and the fire risk areas that were hot real estate markets are still hot hot hot.

I'm sorry.....................but I do not know where you get this kind of stuff.

[storewanderer]

I haven't seen anyone who appeared to be in management, but they don't really have any room to adjust here. There are probably less than 50 feet of coolers/freezers here, so expanding beer would eliminate soda and so on. The compact fixtures really limit the capacity and depth of SKUs. The store is so small I'm guessing there is little to no backroom to speak of either, I'm sure everything is on the floor. I'd just hate to be in their shoes running this little convenience store with pharmacy. They're screwed by store design. Hopefully now that this concept should be gone like the former CEO maybe they'll go fix the few locations it was applied to and get them to the Wellness format assortment.

But I have to wonder if this store will ultimately be doomed. The state of California, despite their self declared housing shortage, decided to redo their fire hazard maps. Nearly every new development in the area of this store is now "Very High Severity Fire Hazard Zone" which basically translates to nearly impossible to get insurance. Homeowners in the areas added to these maps are screwed as their insurers are going to start canceling left and right. Developers are even worse off because A) They're going to get sued by home buyers who just moved into these new "safe" homes only to now learn they're unsafe, and B) They can't get insurance either to build/complete their developments. So home building on that neighborhood is going to grind to a halt. Apparently lots of Eastern Murrieta, Temecula, Menifee and parts of Riverside etc. are now very high risk fire severity. I'm all for keeping people safe, but why did it take the state so long to figure out these were very dangerous areas? I wonder if the state winds up getting sued and having to buy back all these new homes. No matter what, these were the few fast growing areas of SoCal and they're about to come crashing to a halt. I find it interesting that I am not in a fire severity zone at all, but 3/4 of a mile away it jumps to the highest level of severity. I feel pretty safe where I'm at, mainly because all the hills burned about five years ago here and the decades of thick brush that fuel major wildfires all burned away leaving a broad, open flat landscape.

I shouldn't go off topic. However, this may be a ploy by State of California in conjunction with the insurance industry to try to get people back into/closer to the major cities who have been leaving the cities to move to areas like this. Conversely this may be a way to take these people who moved out to these areas to "save money" and screw them over with higher insurance premiums so suddenly they don't save as much money anymore. I hate to be cynical like this but... yeah. Increased insurance costs have been a huge problem in rural NorCal (for obvious reasons) but people continue to find a way/make a way to stay and real estate values have not really depressed as I expected them to. The fire risk areas that already had depressed real estate values stayed depressed and the fire risk areas that were hot real estate markets are still hot hot hot.

I'm sorry.....................but I do not know where you get this kind of stuff.

Anything that allows insurance companies to increase rates with the blessings of the government...

You have to think like government. They sit back figuring out how to do things to force the people to do what they want them/need them to do so their pockets will be further loaded up. And many states, not just CA, need people to get back to the bigger cities and quit moving away from the bigger cities.

[jamcool]

Which means they move out of California instead.

[storewanderer]

Which means they move out of California instead.

Still a lot of very high paying jobs in CA that are moving back toward making you show up to the office in the bay area or some nice office park in Orange County every day or at least 2-3 days a week... some people won't want to give those jobs up. Also other reasons like near retirement, or have kids/family still in CA who are not leaving, etc.

[storewanderer]

Had to go to Susanville again.

Now Walgreens Susanville Pharmacy is open 9-7 M-F Only and closed weekends. The store is barely stocked, the floor is so dirty with so much built up black gunk on it that there is a little patch of white floor where they tried to clean/mop something up near checkout, and I cannot imagine this store staying open much longer in this state. Rite Aid is still pharmacy 9-5 M-F only. This has been a busy Rite Aid but they seem to be doing their best to kill it. Meanwhile the Wal Mart Pharmacy there in Susanville is still open weekends... why is Wal Mart able to staff pharmacy and neither of these major chain drugstores can?

[ClownLoach]

I shouldn't go off topic. However, this may be a ploy by State of California in conjunction with the insurance industry to try to get people back into/closer to the major cities who have been leaving the cities to move to areas like this. Conversely this may be a way to take these people who moved out to these areas to "save money" and screw them over with higher insurance premiums so suddenly they don't save as much money anymore. I hate to be cynical like this but... yeah. Increased insurance costs have been a huge problem in rural NorCal (for obvious reasons) but people continue to find a way/make a way to stay and real estate values have not really depressed as I expected them to. The fire risk areas that already had depressed real estate values stayed depressed and the fire risk areas that were hot real estate markets are still hot hot hot.

I'm sorry.....................but I do not know where you get this kind of stuff.

Anything that allows insurance companies to increase rates with the blessings of the government...

You have to think like government. They sit back figuring out how to do things to force the people to do what they want them/need them to do so their pockets will be further loaded up. And many states, not just CA, need people to get back to the bigger cities and quit moving away from the bigger cities.

The relevant issue is that the situation will doom the growth of new homes this store was intended to open and serve. It's not that the insurance companies raise rates - they just outright cancel and refuse to insure in the "VHFHSZ" map areas. As such the homes become uninhabitable. Not having insurance means you are out of compliance with your mortgage and subject to foreclosure. People will be forced to leave these homes branded as uninsurable. Obviously they aren't going to be folks who are deficient in making payments on their mortgage either, but nobody will buy them and the banks aren't going to want them either. Nor can the banks make an exception and excuse them from having fire insurance. Many mortgages don't allow for the state funded minimum coverage programs either and require a full insurance policy. Could you imagine buying a new home built in 2019, 2020, 2021 or 2022 only to suddenly find out that it has magically been declared unsafe to occupy by the State? It's obvious that this will end in massive lawsuits by homeowners, lenders, builders etc against each other and the State. I feel sorry for folks who bought these homes.... And I was almost one of them.

[storewanderer]

The relevant issue is that the situation will doom the growth of new homes this store was intended to open and serve. It's not that the insurance companies raise rates - they just outright cancel and refuse to insure in the "VHFHSZ" map areas. As such the homes become uninhabitable. Not having insurance means you are out of compliance with your mortgage and subject to foreclosure. People will be forced to leave these homes branded as uninsurable. Obviously they aren't going to be folks who are deficient in making payments on their mortgage either, but nobody will buy them and the banks aren't going to want them either. Nor can the banks make an exception and excuse them from having fire insurance. Many mortgages don't allow for the state funded minimum coverage programs either and require a full insurance policy. Could you imagine buying a new home built in 2019, 2020, 2021 or 2022 only to suddenly find out that it has magically been declared unsafe to occupy by the State? It's obvious that this will end in massive lawsuits by homeowners, lenders, builders etc against each other and the State. I feel sorry for folks who bought these homes.... And I was almost one of them.

Somehow people in the fire areas in Northern California keep getting insurance. It just keeps doubling in price... and they often have to switch carriers...

There are a lot of people who I suspect haven't spent much time in the rural or more suburban type areas, who want people to get out of these high fire risk areas. They are trying to use the fires and rebuilding situation as a reason to depopulate these areas. In your case they are trying to use this as a reason to hinder growth in an area that hasn't even had a fire (has it..?). It is not within the topic of this forum for me to analyze their motives. This is an article on that general attitude. https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... e-recovery

The state government can absolutely use these fire risk maps and insurance companies to get people to behave how they want them to (get them out of the fire risk areas).