The Death of the American Pharmacy

Bartell's, a beloved Seattle drugstore now owned by debt-laden Rite Aid, is closing many of its locations. Its demise is the latest symptom of a national health care crisis that hurts all of us.

- MARIA ASPAN

SOMETIMES SEATTLE EARNS its gloomy reputation. It was cold, dark, and wet on the February morning I arrived, and I needed a new umbrella.

This should have been a temporary inconvenience, at worst. Seattle-home base to Amazon, Microsoft, Costco, Starbucks-is one of our nation's most important commercial hubs, and one of its wealthiest cities. Surely there would be several drugstores downtown, eager to sell me new rain gear.

But many of the stores I walked past were long closed, or filled with shelves that alternated between empty and locked-up. Finally I came to the darkened entrance of what was, until December, store No. 1 of Bartell Drugs, a beloved local chain now owned by Rite Aid. One of the windows still had the Bartell's logo and a sign declaring it was "Est. 1890"; taped above them was a "For Lease" poster. Signs on the door told customers their prescriptions had been transferred to the Walgreens up the street. Huddled under a dirty white blanket, a person slept in the entryway.

"It's heartbreaking," says Ryan Oftebro, an owner of KelleyRoss, one of the last remaining general-purpose pharmacies in downtown Seattle. "Bartell's was community-focused and local, and that's where you went for high-quality service."