Rite Aid

Sneezing? Think you may be allergic to something? Some Rite Aid stores are planning to hold free allergy screening for the most common allergens on Saturday at selected stores from noon to 4 p.m. Spring is traditionally a busy allergy season so nurses will be on hand to administer Fluorescent Allergosorbent, or FAST, tests. Included allergens are eggs, mold, cats, wheat, mountain cedar, dust mites, milk, ragweed and grass. Stores offering the screenings include: +6838 Loch Raven Boulevard in Baltimore, 410-825-8900 +711 West 40th Street in Baltimore, 410-467-3343 +4380 Park Heights Ave. in Baltimore, 410-664-8644 +2043 Mondawmin Mall in Baltimore 410-523-6315 +250 West Chase Street in Baltimore, 410-752-4473 +2801 Foster Avenue in Baltimore, 410-732-0523 +5624 Baltimore National Pike in Baltimore 410-a719-7608 +29-31 Shipping Place in Baltimore 410-282-0020 +110 Mitchells Chance Road in Edgewater, 410-956-9411 +2633 Brandermill Blvd.

Sneezing? Think you may be allergic to something? Some Rite Aid stores are planning to hold free allergy screening for the most common allergens on Saturday at selected stores from noon to 4 p.m. Spring is traditionally a busy allergy season so nurses will be on hand to administer Fluorescent Allergosorbent, or FAST, tests. Included allergens are eggs, mold, cats, wheat, mountain cedar, dust mites, milk, ragweed and grass. Stores offering the screenings include: +6838 Loch Raven Boulevard in Baltimore, 410-825-8900 +711 West 40th Street in Baltimore, 410-467-3343 +4380 Park Heights Ave. in Baltimore, 410-664-8644 +2043 Mondawmin Mall in Baltimore 410-523-6315 +250 West Chase Street in Baltimore, 410-752-4473 +2801 Foster Avenue in Baltimore, 410-732-0523 +5624 Baltimore National Pike in Baltimore 410-a719-7608 +29-31 Shipping Place in Baltimore 410-282-0020 +110 Mitchells Chance Road in Edgewater, 410-956-9411 +2633 Brandermill Blvd.

An Ohio pharmacist who accused Rite Aid Corp. of bribery has recanted his allegations in a letter of apology to company president Martin L. Grass as part of a settlement of a defamation lawsuit the drugstore chain filed against the pharmacist.The settlement is the latest chapter in a long-running legal battle between Rite Aid, the nation's largest drugstore chain, based in Shiremanstown, Pa., and the board that regulates pharmacies in Ohio.In his letter to Grass, released by Rite Aid, druggist Melvin T. Wilczynski expressed regret for having cooperated with agents of the pharmacy board and state and federal prosecutors.

A little more than nine years ago, I moved to Mount Vernon. It was great, although at first I'd occasionally want to go to Rite Aid --- the one in the island near State Center complex, at the north end of Martin Luther King Blvd. --- and drive around and around in circles and never find it. Other times, I would try to go home, take a wrong turn and find myself at the Rite Aid, which I knew was not going to help me navigate to my apartment. I nicknamed it the Bermuda Triangle.

Martin L. Grass, the 41-year-old president and chief operating officer of Rite Aid, may work in Camp Hill, Pa., but he lives in the Timonium area.This enables him to serve on the boards of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Johns Hopkins Health System and the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. It also allows him to look at sites in this city and think how they fit into the expansion strategy of the nation's leading retail drug business.In recent months, Rite Aid has decided to go to some unconventional places.

It has become all too common for business executives who want to expand in urban areas to ask not what they can do for cities, but what cities can do for them.Not Martin Grass.When his Rite Aid Corp. wanted a larger location on Howard Street, he didn't ask anyone for anything. No tax breaks or subsidies. He just bought the long-vacant Hecht Co. building, kindling hope for the long-awaited rejuvenation of the commercial corridor."We've always had a corporate attitude that if we're going to do something, just go out and do it," says Mr. Grass, 41, a Baltimore County resident who heads the nation's largest drugstore chain.

CAMP HILL, Pa. - Rite Aid Corp., the No. 3 U.S. drugstore chain, started a national advertising campaign that highlights its pharmacists' commitment to customer service. The campaign features print ads, in-store signs and commercials on television networks including CNN, TNT, Lifetime and A&E. The spots depict pharmacists caring for patients in real-life incidents, such as a Rite Aid pharmacist giving a surprised customer a get-well card along with her medicine. The tagline for the ads is "With us, it's personal," the company said.

CAMP HILL, Pa. - Rite Aid Corp., the target of a federal probe of its accounting practices, expects legal expenses of as much as $12 million in the next three quarters to defend against lawsuits and cooperate with investigators. The company forecast legal costs of $7 million to $12 million during the rest of the fiscal year ending in February 2002, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The costs do not include the $3.4 million in legal expenses the company had in the fiscal first quarter that ended June 2. Rite Aid, the third-biggest drugstore chain, is trying to boost sales and profit after three years of losses and an accounting scandal stemming from a rapid expansion under previous management.

Rite Aid Corp. yesterday continued the wheeling and dealing it began six months ago, announcing the sale of most of its Florida stores to Eckerd Corp. for $75 million in cash.With the sale of 109 stores, Camp Hill, Pa.-based Rite Aid will also close its distribution center in Melbourne, Fla., but will continue operating 24 stores in northern Florida.The deal is expected to be a financial wash for Rite Aid, the largest national drug retailer with more than 2,800 discount stores in 23 states and Washington, D.C. Cash from the sale will be offset by the cost of closing the distribution center and maintaining the leases on Florida properties not being acquired by Eckerd.

It takes quite a leap of fancy to envision vacant Howard Street shops as galleries and performance spaces, with loft apartments on upper levels: A Baltimore version of New York's SoHo art district.That's one of the ideas for revitalizing the city's one-time retail hub, which went downhill rapidly in the 1970s after all the department stores abandoned the area.Rite Aid Corp.'s acquisition of the former Hecht Co. department store building at Howard and Lexington streets has suddenly made this vision an intriguing one. Rite Aid, the nation's largest retail drug chain, plans to use the street level for a large store.

It was just a matter of time before businesses began to push back against some of the worst behaviors of extreme couponers. Some retailers and manufacturers have revised their policies lately, restricting the number of coupons consumers can use to prevent them from stripping shelves bare or from paying little or nothing for baskets of groceries. Rite Aid, for example, changed its policy in May so savvy shoppers can no longer double up on buy-one-get-one-free coupons and not pay anything.

Tiffany Burgess, 15, is just finishing her freshman year at Aberdeen High School, but she has already set her sights on an advanced degree. When a Harford County company offered a free business literacy course, she jumped at the chance. "I already know that I am a people person," the aspiring law student said. "I like helping people solve problems. The course helped me with communication skills. " Burgess and 11 other teen members of the Aberdeen Boys and Girls Club said they feel more prepared for the workforce after completing Career Launch, 14 weekly sessions at Rite-Aid's Mid-Atlantic Customer Support Center in Aberdeen.

Five years ago, we chastised the Maryland General Assembly for attempting to single out one retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. , with a law requiring the company to spend more on health benefits. That mandate was eventually struck down by the federal courts. Well, here those Maryland politicians go again. Baltimore City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke this week introduced a measure to require the city's largest retailers to pay their employees a "living wage," (currently about $10 an hour)

ALEX GRASS, 82 Founder of Rite Aid Rite Aid Corp. founder Alex Grass died Thursday night in Harrisburg, Pa., after a 10-year battle with lung cancer, saaid his daughter, Elizabeth Weese. She, along with her husband Brian D. Weese, were the owners of four Bibelot bookstores in Baltimore (in Timonium, Woodholme, Cross Keys and Canton) from April 1995 until they declared bankruptcy in March 2001. Mr. Grass helped build Rite Aid into one of the nation's largest drugstore chains and was a philanthropist who gave to civic, health and educational organizations.

U.S. mortgage rates again at record low WASHINGTON: Rates on 30-year mortgages fell to the lowest level on record for the second consecutive week after the Federal Reserve launched a new effort to assist the staggering U.S. housing market. Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac said Thursday that average rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 4.78 percent this week, from 4.85 percent last week. It was the lowest in the history of Freddie Mac's survey, which dates back to 1971. Rates are down by more than a full percentage point from a year ago. "Mortgage rates followed other interest rates lower this week amid reports of slower economic growth," Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist, said in a prepared statement.

Doctors with Columbia's MedStar Health soon will provide urgent care services at area Rite Aid stores, through a partnership the organizations plan to announce today. Starting this summer, MedStar PromptCare clinics will roll out in four drugstores, two in the Baltimore region and two in the Washington area. The companies hope to add 12 more programs nationwide after studying results of the pilot program. "Health care has been late to having a consumer focus, and consumers are increasingly demanding service in a variety of settings that are much more convenient," said Eric R. Wagner, a senior vice president of managed care for MedStar, a nonprofit.

Alex Grass, who built Rite Aid Corp. from a small soap and medicine wholesaler into the country's biggest drugstore chain, will step aside from day-to-day operations next year but continue as chairman, the company said yesterday.Mr. Grass will resign as chief executive officer in March 1995, assuming "a less intense schedule," Rite Aid said. The CEO job will pass to his son, Martin, who lives in Baltimore County and has been groomed for years to succeed his father.The announcement wasn't a surprise.

ON Feb. 9, 1999, Rite Aid chief executive Martin Grass invited company Controller Stephen Kindler into his office and urged him to inflate revenue so Rite Aid's profits would look bigger than they were, according to a document filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. "Everyone needs to pull together," Grass told Kindler, according to an amended shareholder lawsuit filed last year and prepared with cooperation from the drug chain's present management. As added inducement, Kindler's direct boss, Chief Financial Officer Frank Bergonzi, offered the controller $20,000 and said, "We're going to have to get dirty here," the document alleges.

Trial of 6 teens charged in bus attack gets under way The trial of six of the nine middle school students charged in the December attack of a woman and her boyfriend on a city bus began yesterday in juvenile court with attorneys arguing whether statements the teenagers made to police are admissible. The defense lawyers want to exclude from the adjudicatory hearing -- the equivalent of a trial in juvenile court -- statements the young suspects made to Maryland Transit Administration Police on the day of the beating.