Another Rite Aid, wrong town story. A citizens group in this New Hampshire town of around 14,000 pop, Historic Clarement First has announced that it will soon beging a “sustained picketing” of a Rite Aid drugstore that was just completed in Claremont, one mile away from the site of another proposed Rite Aid that neighbors are fighting. Claremont already has six pharmacies (including a rare independent drug store), and Rite Aid has proposed razing four historic buildings to make way for another of their one-story, flat-roofed drive-thru convenience stores. For over 18 months, HCF has fought the plan, and is now in New Hampshire Supreme Court, where their case was filed in December of 1997. According to New Hampshire’s Division of Historic Resources, Claremont’s attractiveness has a heritage tourist area depends on preserving and enhancing its historic properties. Rite Aid wants to make 4 of them disappear, just to build another store close enough near the first to gain a little more market share. Wal-Mart, Brooks and CVS are all doing business in town. If Claremont gets any more drug stores, they’re going to have to go out and make people sick to keep the drug stores going.
Historic Claremont First needs money to fight their court case, and people to help with their informational pickets at the newly opened Rite Aid store on Washington St in Claremont. To find out more about the Claremont effort to rite the wrong, contact Kathy Thompson at 603-542-5500.
