The Village Pharmacy, located in the 881 Alma Real Building since 1981, closed December 28 after 11 years of ownership by Tom Price. Price, a West Los Angeles resident, sold the business to CVS Pharmacy after more than two years of looking for an individual proprietor. CVS will let the lease lapse in January, while hoping that his 300+ customers will switch their prescription accounts to CVS on Swarthmore. As part of the agreement, Price will not be able to open or work with another pharmacy within five miles of Village Pharmacy for the next five years. When a Palisadian-Post reporter stopped by the pharmacy, located on the ground floor of the professional/medical building next to the Palisades Branch Library, Price and his wife Alicia were busy with a steady stream of customers. ’I’ve been coming here two years,’ said Beverly Hills resident Paul Burin, who was referred to them by a doctor in the building. ‘Tom and Alicia are so accommodating, wonderful and friendly. I get in and out quickly and I just like them.’ ’My intention was to sell the store to another pharmacist and keep it open,’ said Price, who originally bought the business from Kanda Kandasamy. He noted that personal and business reasons factored into the sale. ‘The decision to close the store was difficult, and I know the value that this place has to members of the community, so I’m conflicted about doing it. The outpouring of sadness has been extreme.’ As a single proprietor, Price had not taken a sick day in 11 years and his last vacation was three years ago. He worked Monday through Friday, week in and week out. ‘It’s not easy to get a replacement pharmacist,’ said Price, who is going to have knee replacement surgery at the beginning of the year and will need at least a month to recuperate. With his store lease was up in January, Price didn’t want to commit to a long-term lease, not knowing whether he would finally be able to sell his business. During the two years he looked for a buyer, he had only several, insufficient offers. ’When I first started the pharmacy, it was completely different,’ Price said. ‘Then medicine became a big business. Insurance is killing us.’ Price is a single-payer advocate (one who favors a national health insurance in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private) and says if small pharmacies are to survive, insurance companies shouldn’t have a say in mandating the cost of prescription drugs to patients or providers. ’The insurance companies control reimbursements, so a small pharmacy such as ours, which is mainly prescriptions, has a tough time surviving,’ he said. ‘Rising costs and shrinking reimbursements make it difficult to break even.’ A native of Detroit, Price attended pharmacy school at the University of New Mexico before moving to Los Angeles in 1985. His first job was at a Sav-On in Santa Monica (before the chain was acquired by CVS in 2006) and then the privately owned Brentview Pharmacy, which also became a corporate causality. His next move was to the Palisades. In addition to knee surgery, Price plans to visit family back East and then just take time to figure out what he’s going to do next. Customers ask him, ‘Where are you going to be? We want to go where you go.’ He told them jokingly, ‘I’ll put an ad in the Post.’ On a more serious note, ‘I always thought that one of the biggest drawbacks of a small independent pharmacy was the limited hours,’ Price said. ‘Now I realize the biggest drawback is if you need to retire and can’t find a buyer, then the store closes.’ For customers who prefer a small owner-operated pharmacy, there are now only three in Pacific Palisades: Pali RX (on Via de la Paz), Knolls Pharmacy (on Marquez Avennue) and the Palisades Pharmacy (in the Highlands Plaza).
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