Rock Hill Pharmacy, formerly The Medicine Shoppe, closes

By Jason Foster - jfoster@heraldonline.com

Rock Hill Pharmacy, which formerly operated as The Medicine Shoppe on Oakland Avenue, has closed amid financial issues.

The pharmacy closed Tuesday to the surprise of customers and employees, who said they were given no warning.

"It was just a business decision. That's all it was," owner Ken Fetuao said. "It wasn't as profitable as it should have been."

Asked why he gave no warning to customers or the four employees, Fetuao declined to comment.

He said any outstanding customer prescriptions would be forwarded to Good Pharmacy, or to a pharmacy of the customer's choice.

"I apologize (to customers), but you've got to make a business decision at some point. You can't continue to do something that doesn't work," Fetuao said.

Fetuao had owned the pharmacy for about two months. Though the pharmacy had struggled to stay profitable, a medical equipment business that also operates at the site and is "very profitable" will remain open, Fetuao said.

Meanwhile, the swiftness of the closure left workers stunned.

Head pharmacist Lora Crouch said she came to work Tuesday and found her key no longer would open the lock.

"There was no warning, no nothing," said Crouch, who had worked at the pharmacy for four years. "It blind-sided me."

Recently, however, Crouch said the pharmacy had struggled to pay its bills. It was in debt "thousands of dollars" with its Spartanburg supplier and for the past two weeks was no longer able to place orders for medicine or supplies, she said.

"It was just a bad situation," she said. "You can't run a pharmacy when you don't have anything to run it with."

Crouch said her concern now is with the pharmacy's many longtime customers.

"We had a very close, personal relationship with our customers," she said.

Customers who came to get their pills on Tuesday were in shock over the closing, and left with uncertainty.

"I had no way of telling them what to do," Crouch said.

For more, see Friday's Herald.