By Dan Richman

Staff reporter

Linds Pharmacy in Coupeville closed Wednesday after the community was notified via a flyer being distributed earlier last week.

The business has been purchased by Rite-Aid Corp., and all pharmacy records will be transferred to the Rite-Aid pharmacy in Oak Harbor, though current customers can have them transferred from there to wherever they choose.

The closure leaves Coupeville residents without a local place to fill their prescriptions, although the Oak Harbor Rite-Aid will offer free prescription delivery to Coupeville-area customers, according to the flyer. Island Drug in Oak Harbor also offers free island-wide delivery.

Linds Pharmacy, at 40 N. Main St., went up for sale for more than a year and had only a single offer -— Rite-Aid’s —according to the flyer. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

“Our main financial challenge has been the pharmacy insurance companies and their continual lowering of fees and insistence on patients using their mail-order houses,” said the flyer, which was signed “The Lind Family.” “Lowered prescription volumes, coupled with lowered fees, equals financial problems.”

Rite-Aid “is working closely with the company to ensure that patients will see a seamless transition,” a Rite-Aid spokesperson said in an email.

The closure “is really sad,” Pam Young, a Linds customer, said on Thursday. “I’ve lived in Coupeville most of my life, and it’s turning into a place for tourists rather than a place to live.”

The store employs three full-time and six part-time employees, said a worker there who asked not to be identified. Most of them chose to be interviewed for possible jobs at the Oak Harbor Rite-Aid, though some instead chose to quit or retire, that worker said.

Under the sale agreement with Rite-Aid, no one may open a pharmacy on the Coupeville premises for a year, the worker said.

The closure “is a big loss for Coupeville,” said Lynda Eccles, executive director of the town’s chamber of commerce. “It won’t stop anyone from moving here, and the town doesn’t lose of any of its uniqueness, but it does lose a central business.”

Prescriptions that need to be filled quickly, or at the last minute, will remain a challenge even with delivery from Oak Harbor, she noted.

Whidbey General Hospital, directly across the street from Linds, does not have a pharmacy open to the public, noted spokesperson Trish Rose. She said she could not assess the closure’s impact on patients.

Rite-Aid Corp., a publicly traded firm based in Camp Hill, Pa., took over the Freeland Linds Pharmacy in January. The Linds Pharmacy in Langley closed in 2009.

The only pharmacies on the island not run by a corporate giant are owned by Island Drug, with locations in Clinton and Oak Harbor. Island Drug owner Aaron Syring has been approached, “absolutely,” by the major chains, he said Thursday. But he has turned them away, because “I like what I’m doing, working with the community. It’s rewarding, so I’d like to keep doing it.”

Rite-Aid, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, reported revenue of $6.6 billion and net income of $18.8 million for its first fiscal quarter ended May 30. It had a total store count of 4,566 at the quarter’s end. Same-store sales for the quarter increased 2.9 percent over the same period last year, the company said on its website.

Family patriarch Ron Lind did not return calls seeking comment.