Rite Aid Closing 1 Of Its Toms River Stores, Transferring Prescriptions

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Rite Aid is closing one of its five Toms River locations as of Sept. 25, a company spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday morning.

The store at 1726 Route 37 East, at Cornell Avenue near the Salvation Army facility, will be closing its doors, the company said.

Rite Aid was preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to the impact of opioid lawsuits, The Wall Street Journal reported in August. That filing was expected to include the closure of more than 400 of its 2,200 stores, Yahoo Finance reported.

The company, based in Philadelphia, is faced with more than 1,000 lawsuits that are anticipated to be heard in an Ohio court, along with multiple challenges in other states "over its role in prescribing opioid treatments," an MSN report said.

The Rite Aid spokeswoman said the closure was the result of a regular review of its business.

"Like all retail businesses, we regularly review each of our locations to ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers, communities and overall business," she said. "A decision to close a store is one we take very seriously and is based on a variety of factors including business strategy, lease and rent considerations, local business conditions and viability, and store performance."

"We review every neighborhood to ensure our customers will have access to health services, be it at Rite Aid or a nearby pharmacy, and we work to seamlessly transfer their prescriptions so there is no disruption of services," the spokeswoman said. "We also strive to transfer associates to other Rite Aid locations where possible."

Rite Aid has not filed any notices of mass layoffs with the New Jersey Department of Labor, and the spokeswoman did not address a question of whether other Rite Aid locations in Toms River or in Ocean County are set to close.

Darryl Musto, the pharmacist at the Route 37 store that is closing, said prescriptions at that store are getting transferred to the Fischer Boulevard location.

"I have been the pharmacist there for 18 years and it has been my pleasure serving the community all these years," Musto said. He was anticipating being transferred to another store but had not received details of that assignment yet.

There are 105 Rite Aid stores in New Jersey, including 17 in Ocean County. The company confirmed last week that it was closing its Morristown store.