It's official, and it's time: The pharmacy at Fred's on South Main is closing on Thursday.
Fred's new store and pharmacy--the original store on North Main did not include a prescription counter--is not as old even as The Planet, which covered its various stages of construction in 2016. But Fred's is a corporate chain and decisions as to its fate come from on high, or anyway from Memphis, Tenn.
An employee in the pharmacy told The Planet on Tuesday that, after months of conflicting rumors, the fateful phone call came three weeks ago announcing pharmacy closure on the 15th. She said the local CVS had bought Fred's customer records and that customers who wished to transfer their standing prescriptions elsewhere could arrange to have them transferred from there. She said no provision had been made to relocate pharmacy employees but that she hoped to find another job locally.
Employees at the main, or nonpharmacy, checkout said they'd been told the store itself would remain open for now but that they, too, were nervous about their jobs considering the string of store closures regionally.
Fred's was listed as owning 557 stores but this year has announced closure after closure, following a national trend of decreasingly profitable retail operations.
