2 More Rite Aid Stores Closing In NH; Among 77 Nationwide

FRANKLIN, NH — New court documents show Rite Aid plans to close 77 stores nationwide, including two in New Hampshire,

Rite Aid plans to close stores at 951 Central St. in Franklin and 586 Nashua St., Unit 8-9, Milford, according to court documents obtained by Patch. The documents were filed Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.

The latest closures come after Right Aid said it planned to close 75 stores across 15 states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington.

MassLive first reported the closures.

The latest spate of closures comes after the struggling drugstore chain filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in October and announced plans to close 150 stores. Since filing for bankruptcy, Rite Aid has said it will close 431 stores, according to MassLive.

Rite Aid has said it has faced falling sales, increasing competition, and mounting debt stemming from opioid-related lawsuits.

The chain said on its website it has 1,704 stores in the United States. That number was about 4,600 in 2013, according to Business Insider. About 2,000 stores were sold to Walgreens in 2017 after a deal to sell the drugstore chain to its rival was nixed by federal regulators.

"Rite Aid regularly assesses its retail footprint to ensure we are operating efficiently while meeting the needs of our customers, communities, associates, and overall business," a Rite Aid spokesperson told Business Insider. "In connection with the court-supervised process, we notified the Court of certain underperforming stores we are closing to reduce rent expense further and strengthen overall financial performance."