Pharmaca Chain Buys Bay Pharmacy

Owner Wehiba Kalifa confirmed to the Palisadian-Post Friday that she has sold her business to Pharmaca, which will bring a holistic approach to the venerable pharmacy which has served the Palisades since 1949. The transfer of ownership took place on Monday. ‘I think it is a good match for the community,’ Kalifa said, ‘because Pharmaca is really commitment to customer care.’ The chain, which calls itself an ‘integrated pharmacy,’ is expected to continue dispensing prescription drugs as well as offering dietary supplements, herbal medicine and homeopathic remedies. The store also plans to offer medical screenings, diagnostics, demonstrations, book signings and lectures, all related to health. Pharmaca, which is seeking naturopaths, herbalists, nutritionists and estheticians, has already posted a hiring sign on the pharmacy’s front door. ‘Background in Natural Health a Bonus,’ it reads in part. The prime Sunset location, at the corner of La Cruz, will be Pharmaca’s first store in Southern California and 11th store in five Western states. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, the five-year-old chain has four of its European-style stores in the San Francisco area. ‘It was our success there that led us to want to open up in L.A.,’ Pharmaca president and CEO Barry Perzow told the Palisadian-Post on Tuesday. ‘Our demographics depend on high affluence and high education. The research we did indicates that the Palisades is both.’ Kalifa, who purchased the pharmacy four years ago from longtime owner Al Green (who still works as a pharmacist in the store several days a week), said that she was approached by the chain 18 months ago, even before she started extensive renovations to the store in July 2003. After spending some $300,000 to improve the almost 10,000-sq.-ft. space, which included making the pharmacy three times larger by moving it from the back to the front of the store, Kalifa achieved a distinctly modern look. She said she finally made the decision to sell to Pharmaca after realizing ‘how badly they wanted this location, even though the renovation is still not complete.’ Perzow said his company plans to invest $500,000 to give the building, both inside and out, a distinct new look by the end of November. The exterior will be ‘Mediterranean-style’ with large picture windows, while the raised area inside, which currently sells jewelry and clothing, will be an enclosed cosmetic boutique, offering services from ‘make-overs to dermatological consultations.’ Perzow confirmed that the store, the largest in the chain, will continue to offer home delivery, in-house charge accounts and over-the-counter medications, and will carry medical supplies such as wheelchairs and crutches. Plans call for an organic food and beverage section as well as a flower shop in the back of the store, facing ‘the car wash.’ While more than half of Bay Pharmacy’s business currently comes from selling prescription drugs (more than 300 prescriptions a day), Pharmaca plans to expand prescription services by ‘compounding, which is essentially customizing medications for allergy sufferers who may have special needs, for example,’ Perzow said. He added that Bay’s 24 employees will all continue to work for Pharmaca ‘during the transition period. Typically what happens after that is some of them may feel they don’t quite fit into our new model, which will be completely different from what is being offered at the pharmacy now. So they either leave or we retrain them. All of our staff at the Palisades Pharmaca will be very highly trained.’ According to one longtime Bay Pharmacy employee, who asked not to be identified by the Post, all of the workers at the store, both full and part-time, ‘have been invited to fill out applications with Pharmaca, but none of us, as far as we know, is guaranteed a job. Technically, all of us are on probation at this point.’ Kalifa, 32, said she plans to return to her native Ethiopia to live. She said she came to the U.S. when she was 17 to go to school. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a major in business. Her family’s medical supply store in West L.A., which is managed by her brother, is not included in the sale to Pharmaca.