Rite Aid Pharmacy
From Aspen Hill, Maryland, USA
Rite Aid Pharmacy (website)
13870 Georgia Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20906 Northgate Plaza Shopping Center 301 871 6400
Contents |
History
Please see entries at 13870 Georgia Avenue and Northgate Plaza Shopping Center.
Rite Aid assumed ownership of the "Gray Drug Fair" chain in 1987.
Problems
Customer Service Problems
For this writer, at least, there has been a long history of complaints about this store.
Generally speaking, the staff tend to be either uncaring or actively hostile. This may be due to the increasingly ghettoized nature of Aspen Hill itself, or there may be other explanations. At most times, this store has very few customers and it's difficult to understand how it remains in business other than as a corporate loss-leader for tax write-offs. Decades ago, as "Drug Fair", the store did a brisk business and had many loyal customers. Now, the place seems to mostly have "legacy" customers, elderly people who have shopped at the same place for so long that the return to it mostly from force of habit, or perhaps due to failing memories preventing any recollection of why they'd be better off shopping elsewhere.
Openly Hostile Environment
There is a certain level of ambiguity to the local crime problem. It's arguable that various retail establishments and restaurants believe (or more likely, have been told) that certain customers are trouble and that they should be on guard. In many cases this is true. Yet this particular Rite Aid is extremely close to entering the ranks of establishments sensibly characterized as being run by American-Hating Foreign Racists ("AHFR"). But in general, the ambiguity is the prevalent factor here.
Some staffers are not openly hostile, though as soon as they start to ring you up, someone who is definitely hostile will sidle up behind you the moment cash changes hands. Quite often these who sidle up behind you do seem to be AHFR, or perhaps merely racists. See also the periodic phenomenon of killer Rastas. There is an ongoing phenomenon where as I do business in this location and in other retail establishments in the area, some non-descript Central-American type runs up behind me and pokes me in the neck, a perfect example of AHFR assuming that all other foreigners are also AHFR and will look the other way, or join in the harassment.
Some staffers are pretty hostile but it's not easily discerned if they are hostile on the basis of racism, political or religious affiliation, misinformation passed to them by other hostile parties, or are just having a bad day.
In any case, a store that continues to be open yet seems to do its best to drive away paying customers is a store that needs to be regarded with the highest level of suspicion from both corporate management and law-enforcement.
