No changes in store for Rite Aid

NORTH CANAAN — Is the Rite Aid in the center of town — previously Brooks and Canaan Pharmacy before that — poised for yet another change?

“Absolutely not,� said Ashley Flower, a media representative for the Camp Hill, Pa.-based corporation. “It’s business as usual at that store. It’s actually one of our very successful stores, and we have no plans to change operations there.�

Rumors were fueled by customers who noticed Rite Aid brand products being moved in large numbers to clearance shelves. Employees there said rumors were circulating online, and they were seeing some of the same signs in the store that they saw before the changeover from Brooks: store brand movement and changes to cash register receipts that reflect formats other chains are using.

Employees said they have heard nothing yet from the store owner; but they said they first heard about the last changeover, from Brooks to Rite Aid, by reading about it in The Lakeville Journal.

In August 2006, Rite Aid bought more than 1,800 Brooks and Eckerd stores and distribution centers along the east coast, changing all the stores to Rite Aids by June 2007. Flower said there are currently no pending acquisitions either by or of Rite Aid.

“Putting items on clearance is part of business for us,� Flower said. “Any changes customers see in our stores are just part of us trying to do business better.�

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less