ADDISON COUNTY — The Marble Works Pharmacies in Middlebury, Vergennes and Bristol will all close their doors on Aug. 31, according to a brief notification sent to its business partners on Monday, Aug. 24.
The pharmacies are transferring customer prescriptions to the Walgreens Pharmacies located in each of the three communities.
Local employees were told about the move on Monday, Aug. 24.
“Middlebury Marble Works Pharmacy, a retail pharmacy located at 99 Maple St., Middlebury, Vt., 05753, will close its doors and cease all operations on 8/31/2020,” reads an email from the South Carolina-based, Smith Management Services, which owns the Addison County pharmacies. “All active prescriptions will be transitioned on Sept. 1, 2020, to Walgreens.”
The email prescribes the same fate for the Marble Works Pharmacies at 187 Main St., Vergennes, and 61 Pine St. in Bristol.
The email offered no reasons for the sudden closure of the string of independent pharmacies, launched in Middlebury in 1988 by the late Frank Buonincontro of Bristol. A company employee said that the Addison County pharmacies had been sold to Walgreens.
The Independent reached out to Smith Management Services General Management Carrie Tennis on Wednesday morning for details on why the Marble Works Pharmacies were closing. Tennis offered no comment.
But it’s no secret that smaller pharmacy chains are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with larger pharmacy corporations. Those larger pharmacy corporations have been gobbling up the smaller, independent chains in recent years.
We will update this story when new information becomes available.