Rite Aid pharmacies around the country are closing after the company filed for bankruptcy last month.

The Rite Aid Pharmacy at 54th and Peach Street is on that list.

Colonial Family Pharmacy is about a half mile down the street. The locally-owned pharmacy has gotten a lot of customers from Rite Aid.

“We’re getting many calls every day. A lot of folks are stopping in and they’re asking how they can go ahead and transfer their medications to us,” Tim Zurn, a manager at Colonial Family Pharmacy, said.

He said they’re getting about a dozen calls a day. They’ve been able to handle the extra work so far.

“In the last two or three weeks, we’ve increased our volume by probably 10 percent compared to three weeks prior to that,” he said.

Erie Pharmacy has signs outside its building on West 12th St. that make a direct pitch to Rite Aid customers. 

It seems to be working. They’ve gotten about 50 new customers.

“We don’t know yet if we’re going to have to add on staff,” Erie Pharmacy’s managing partner, Jeff Sedelmyer, said. “We might have to add on some staff to handle the increased workload. But we’ll know more here in the next month or so.”

He said the hardest part has been getting to know all of the new customers.

“Everyone likes to be treated a certain way, and they have certain preferences. It’s just a whole new group of people,” he said. 

Both pharmacies said transferring prescriptions from anywhere, not just Rite Aid, should be pretty easy.

“They can have their doctor call in all new prescriptions and have them sent over electronically,” Sedelmyer said. “That’s probably the easiest way for us.” 

“As long as we are accepting their insurance, and we accept pretty much all insurances, we will take those customers on,” Zurn said.