by David Chapman
Staff Writer
Like the ever-changing world of medicine itself, the pharmacy business has changed over time. Today, the landscape is littered with many big-box national stand-alones as grocery and retail providers, but through it all many small and family owned businesses have stood the test of time and competition to remain mainstays within their respective communities.
“We’ve been here over 35 years when my mother and father opened,” said Denise Stiles-Yount of Preston Pharmacy and Home Medical Equipment on Atlantic Boulevard. “I grew up around it and I’ve always been a pharmacist, too.”
The business, said Stiles-Yount, is going well and has seen its share of technological advances and throngs of loyal regulars, but not all the changes have been as positive. In 1995, after many years of being housed on the same corner of Atlantic and University boulevards, a Walgreens occupied its location and caused the move to the new storefront nearly across the street that patrons visit today. Additionally, Stiles-Yount believes insurance changes through the years have funneled some clients to national chains for their needs.
But they don’t always provide all the necessities — or the attention — some clients need. In addition to being a compounding pharmacy, one that is able to mix drugs to fit patients, Preston and Home Medical offers everything from diabetic and wound care supplies to walkers and wheelchairs, while also delivering products.
“We’re always available,” said Stiles-Yount.
In both Ortega and Riverside, longtime pharmacist William “Bill” Carter has seen his share of regulars come through the doors of his pharmacies. A former City Council president and Duval County School Board member, Carter opened Carter’s Pharmacy in Ortega in 1955 then acquired Carter’s Park & King Pharmacy in Riverside in 1986.
Much like Preston and Home Medical, across the street from Carter’s Park & King lies a Walgreens. But Carter doesn’t particularly view the store as competition. The insurance business has “changed quite a bit,” he said, but he views his craft as a specialty.
“We’re both different types of organizations,” said Carter, of the national chains and his business. “They don’t do some of the things we do at all ... we fill a niche.”
Most of the prescriptions he fills are from the Ortega location, he said, while the Park & King has many special needs items — things like oxygen tanks, wheelchairs and burn ointments, much like those from Preston and Home Medical — while maintaining personal service that Carter said doesn’t exist in abundance anymore.
“People come in here and it reminds them of the past,” said Carter. “I think that’s one of the big things ... I don’t think it’s changed much over the years. Service is still what we deliver and I think people respect that.”
Carter can recall numerous stories of meeting people in the middle of the night at the store for medicine or having oxygen delivered at all hours because of emergencies — not that it’s bothered him along the way.
“I’ll be 81 years old soon and I can say I love what I do,” said Carter, who came out of retirement several years ago. “I think people can do well for themselves in this business on their own if they want.”
Pharmacist Steve Glaros has been in the business more than 40 years and purchased Wood’s Edgewood Pharmacy, originally opened in 1923 on the corner of Edgewood and Roosevelt boulevards, in 1979. Like other smaller pharmacies, Wood’s was a small store similar to others in nature until September 2003 when a burglar broke in and set the place ablaze.
Now, Glaros calls a second floor office space of the Bank of America office building several blocks down his office, and no longer sells over-the-counter medicines, has a U.S. Post Office drop-off, bill station or other amenities of his former location, but still has loyal customers.
“I’m still here and many have been with me 40 years,” he said. “I’ve helped grandmothers, their children and their children’s children.”
A prescribing pharmacist, Glaros is able to both write and fill prescriptions for his customers and makes a living doing so, unlike the national chains that, as he says, lose money on their pharmacies and instead profit on in-store sales.
While many of the smaller pharmacies provide some overlap of services, Stiles-Yount doesn’t consider her counterparts competition — instead it’s businesses like the ones who have come up across the street in the past 20 years.
“Definitely not,” she said on potential competition with smaller pharmacies. “There are a lot of local pharmacies and a lot of us know each other ... I think we’re up against the big guys.”
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