Del Norte Pharmacies in Santa Fe, Eldorado and Las Vegas are out of business
May 1—The owners of Del Norte Pharmacies & Home Medical Equipment of New Mexico announced Monday afternoon their pharmacies in Santa Fe, Eldorado and Las Vegas, N.M., are permanently closed.
Janet McCroskey, who owns Del Norte Pharmacies through her Sherman, Texas-based Dansley Inc. and Turquoise Ltd., sent out a letter Monday afternoon confirming the closures, saying the decision was in part due to the death of her husband in September 2021.
"You will need to call your doctors and have them send your medication requests to a different pharmacy as we can no longer accept your prescriptions," McCroskey wrote. "Harvey, my husband, passed away September 29, 2021. It was his expertise and guidance that created and maintained Del Norte. I tried my best to keep the pharmacies open after he passed away, but without his leadership I was unable to."
Harvey McCroskey, who died in Santa Fe, launched the Del Norte brand in 2000. He had been managing partner of the Del Norte pharmacies and owned other pharmacies in Texas.
Staff at the Eldorado pharmacy were calling customers Saturday to let them know that would be the last day of business, said Eldorado resident Elizabeth Roghair, who had been a customer of the Del Norte store at the La Tienda at Eldorado shopping center.
News of the shutdowns came after staffing shortages at the pharmacies led to abbreviated operating hours since at least March. The Santa Fe store was closed for a week in early April because no pharmacist was available. The Eldorado store apparently had periodic closures over the past month or so as well.
"It was closed three days and open two days," Roghair said. "Every week was a different story" at least through April.
Dansley Inc. managing partner Rhonda Hindsley announced in April the three New Mexico pharmacies were in the process of being sold to a pharmacist. She wrote in an email Monday, however, the sale would not be going through.
Roghair said she had her doctor transfer her prescriptions to Express Scripts.
"I could have gone with mail order all along," she said. But, she added, "We're retired. Going out to get your prescription is like going to the post office. You run into people you know."
She didn't just have her own prescriptions filled at Del Norte.
"The thing Del Norte did for us is compound medicine for our cat," she said.
Del Norte is the second, independent compounding pharmacy in Santa Fe to close this year. Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy closed in February.
Turquoise Ltd. acquired the Santa Fe pharmacy, at 1691 Galisteo St., and another in Las Vegas in 2000, Hindsley said.
The Del Norte Pharmacy in Eldorado opened in 2017.
"They put in almost $300,000 to build it out," La Tienda co-owner Steve Ewers said in an interview.
Ewers was surprised to hear Del Norte was shuttered. Signs on the doors, apparently posted Saturday, read: "We do not have a pharmacist working today so we are unable to open."
The signs were still up as Janet McCroskey's letter went out Monday.
"I talked to her [McCroskey] on Friday," Ewers said. "They were going to file bankruptcy. I talked to her a couple hours later and she said they were going to stay open for 30 days."
Ewers doesn't think the Eldorado site will be shuttered for long.
"We already have interested parties," he said. He did not specify whether he thought the location would continue to operate as a pharmacy.
