Rite-Aid, a retail institution that has outlasted KMart, Sambo’s, the Lido, Montgomery Wards, Green Barn Restaurant, Palace Hotel, Palace Dress Shop, a century of Ford dealerships and Bank of America, will close its doors later this month.
When Rite Aid departs so will everything but memories of its famous five cent ice cream cones, the city’s best rack of greeting cards, the pharmacy, Big Hunk candy bars and, perhaps most of all, Marcy Royal, the face of the store for more than 40 years. The question becomes, What will we miss more? Marcy or Rite Aid?
My pick is Marcy. Everyone knows Marcy and Marcy knows everyone. This might happen to us too if we spent, as Marcie has, 43 years behind the counter and among the shelves at Rite Aid. To have logged that many years at Rite Aid, Inc., calculations suggest Marcy began when she was three or four years old. A guess is she’s about 39 right now, but math can be very confusing. I can’t even spell adiditon.
So the countdown has begun. On June 25 Rite Aid closes here, there and everywhere.
The local store, always well-stocked, now appears as if looters had stormed through half an hour ago and ransacked the place. No, wait. No it doesn’t, because there are still plenty of whiskey and wine bottles remaining on shelves. (NOTE: More to come on store lootings.)
Some background: There are odd things about Rite Aid in Ukiah, starting with it originally being known as Value Giant, as you surely don’t remember, before morphing into Payless. There were two Thrifty stores in town (one near the old Montgomery Wards) that became Thrifty Payless until bought by Rite Aid.
And Rite Aid itself has operated out of two buildings, albeit on the same property at South State and Gobbi Streets. And the old store is the one Marcy began working part-time when still in high school.
That’s a long time for the memories to pile up.
“I started in 1982 working part-time, still in school, and it was my first real job. I was thinking I’d be able to save some money, maybe buy a car. I never really thought I’d be here this long,” she laughs. “But then you get married, have kids and pretty soon it’s one thing after another.”
But she doesn’t look back and wish she’d taken another path. “No. No regrets. It’s been a good job and I’ve enjoyed it. People (in the store) have always been great to me, helpful when I needed it. When I got a divorce and it was just me and the kids everyone was flexible, everyone worked with me.”
Her friends in the store are outnumbered only by the friends she’s made with customers, and the store’s imminent closing has brought it all into focus.
“I have people who heard the store is shutting down and they come in to see me, concerned about me and see about how I’m doing,” she said. “These are people I’ve known for a long time, and they’re genuinely worried. They’ve come in over the past two or three weeks and I’ve been touched by how much they care. It brings a tear to me eyes when they tell me how much they’ll miss me.”
A former boss, Richard “Dick” Anderson stopped in, said Marcy. “He wanted too see how I was doing, to see if I needed anything, and that he was concerned whether I was OK and what I’d be doing, where I’d be going.
“He said ‘Will I get to see you again?’ It just touches my heart.
“A wonderful lady stopped by to tell me she’d have her church pray for me, and when she asked for a hug that’s when I just started to cry. It’s all so genuine. Everyone is so sincere.”
And of course people wonder whether she’s going to retire. “I don’t think I’m ready to retire,” said Marcy. “I need to keep busy. I need to be doing something. I’ve never even been on unemployment. So maybe I’ll stay home and paint my house.”
But why is Ukiah’s longtime anchor drug store suddenly going under? Marcy thinks it’s a combination of poor corporate mismanagement and the changing nature of the way people shop.
(TRIGGER WARNING: Looter alert)
“It’s little bit of everything,” she says. “Retail just isn’t what it used to be. People are doing their shopping online now.
“That, combined with all the theft, the looting and shoplifting; it makes it so much more difficult. People come in, take whatever they want and walk back out,” she said. “There’s no accountability and I guess people today just don’t know right from wrong.”
The answer from the top has been to let people take what they want and for store employees to stand back and watch. “If we say anything or go after anyone we’re the ones who get fired. They (management) say they are looking out for us and they don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
The wave of local lawbreaking hasn’t been confined to Rite Aid. Stories of employees quitting at Raley’s due to lax anti-shoplifing policies have made the rounds. Marcy says a friend who’d been working at JC Penney’s told her “Marcy i just can’t take it. I can’t do this anymore,” and quit.
The soon-to-shutter store which once had 30 or more employees in the previous building, now manages to get by with four. No plans for a farewell party are contemplated. Nothing is planned for its few remaining workers.
Last Call: Rite Aid closes for good on June 25.
Hurry on down. Those shelves won’t clear themselves.
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