THE WILLIAMS LAKE TRIBUNE Wednesday, September 30, 1959 STER HAS A COMPLEX ed. Even the critics start out with a lot of roads — but...” Now Phil hed the stage where he doesn’t hear pea ‘but’’, and then he wades in a’swing- highways, we’d have thought he bh the introduction. her day when Mr. Gaglardi paid xactly put us in the same class ver dailies that takes after him e left no doubt that he consid- a junior fly in the ministerial im in the past — in fact if it matter of a bridge over the y the news columns of The ave been few and far be- years. dy been issued. We prin- S we couldn’t set in type. n appreciate that it’s a and build roads in our mental impact of pro- Sland Tunnel are sjarred nthe seat of your pants ut to nearby Glendale. y, Mr. Minister, so we'll ditions around Williams are none of these con- Gaglardi. If you finish Trade meeting the druggist is chair and said ‘Well that’s to relax from now until 9 ing.* py that as long as the village to regulate his hours—he wsuld t being “‘on call’ un the ;rest Med their doors in the afte. only a bluff, of course, but even the\drug- + know how soon the bluff would be called. there about £0 minutes when his son came hrough the door and said ‘Dad, someone epileptic fit outside the store.” ggist promptly left on the run, and with faded any thoughts in our mind that we the druggist, or pharmacist, if you prefer, merchant” as he was labelled at one fheeting. wthis scene and the unusual situation of wo drug stores opening their pharmacy on Monday afternoons and closing their Wednesday in a sort of protest move, i ew hours of closing bylaw and its lumping Atores with other retail merchants. ifically, the druggists wish to be free to prac- vir profession — and carry on their retail busi- during any hours they see fit. he bylaw permits the former, but forbids the atter. The-druggist can fill prescriptions at any hour, put he must not sell anything else other than in busi- ness hours as set forth in the regulations. In reaching this decision, the commissioners have made it clear that they feel any other arrangement would be discriminatory — discriminatory, that i against other merchants in town, It is also evident. however, that certain misconceptions are coloring their feelings on the matter. They are quick to point out that the druggist is not restricted to opening his dis- pensary, and there seems to be the feeling that this mysterious world of drugs is an extremely lucrative one, capable of keeping any pharmacist in the luxuries we would all like to experience. How true is this? In the September issue of the Pharmaceutical Journal, the results of a survey of 83 pharmacies in British Columbia show the average price of prescriptions was $3.05. It also shows the net profit on sales to be 2.2%. Now, to get back to Wil- liams Lake, our two drug stores do not average 40 prescriptions a day, but we'll use that figure. Keeping the dispensary open means maintaining a staff — not 2 a full one, but enough eyes to watch for pilfering. To make up for this decrease in operating cost, let’s raise that net for each day the dispensary alone is open, to 10 per cent and that leaves a net figure of $12.20 for the two stores. Although the commisSion has pointed out that the drug stores are not losing any hours of business (or at most only a couple) over the previous arrange- ment, there is an element of discrimination against the drug stores. The town’s only medical clinic con- tinues to hold its major office day on Monday. This means that the two pharmacists must remain on duty Monday afternoon to fill prescriptions. On the other hand, if they open their store Wednesday afternoon they run contrary to the Pharmaceutical Act of a pharmacist isn’t in attendance. So now the druggist is caught between two fires. . The druggist in appealing for exemption under the bylaw place a lot of emphasis on the professional service they offer the public. If the bodily mechanism of any of our several thousand citizens breaks down, the process of appeals for help comes down to him through the doctors. . It is undoubtedly because of this element of ser- vice that the Municipal Act has a clause in that section dealing with hours of closing that states a municipal body can, in framing such a bylaw, exempt drug stores. Although this is ignored here, some provision is made for other services. For example, service stations can obtain total exemptions, provided they apply for permits and maintain the hours asked for. To the druggist, this would appear to be placing the family automobile on a higher plane that the family’s health. Of the objections against,a free hand for drug 4 on the street every time the govern- . EDITORIAL PAGE As It U. the early ’20’s. changed around SSeS —< sed To Look The new provincial government building as it looked shortly after completion in The b in the meantime. picture was taken from the present foca- tion of 2nd Avenue and where that trail winds up, a retaining wall now exists. At the left of the building is Oliver Street. hasn’t This entrance 4 a By. CliveStangoe Two of our loc per in mental ,arit, mind when dise Discussion arose from a suggestion that property owners should be entitled to a 10 per cent discount if they paid their sew- er rental a year in ad- vance similar to water rates. Since the average home pays out $24 annually sewer rental, would amount to $2.40 off the bill for those paying in advance. Argument to the idea was of- fered by Chairman Herb Gard- ner who said repayment figures on the system were based on 12- month rentals and if too many property owners paid in advance, revenue might be short of esti- vhy, if 100 customers paid in advance, that would be $2,400,” Mr. Gardner computed. ‘No, no,” interjected vice- chairman Tony Borkowski, also doing some quick mental cal- culations, ‘it would only be $24. Commissioner Ralph Woodland advanced to the head of the Council mathematics class by coming up with $240. Visitors at our cattle sales are always warned not to scratch their ears when the auctioneer is well launched on his selling spiel, in case they find them- selves owning a Hereford. Same danger exists at meetings, Mrs. Jim Huckvale discovered last week. Attending the P-TA meeting last Tuesday night, teacher Huckvale was absently scrateh- ing her ear as president Gil Mundell was making a piteh for spare husbands to help move chairs for this week’s regional conference. Spotting the slight movement in the audience, the president asked Mrs. Huckvale if she was volunteering her husband’s services. “Can’t a per- son just scrateh her ear?” was the startled retort. Confused visitor to town this week was one of the B.C. Tele- etic at las ng sewer bi came ja crop- week’s ( comet g discounts. phone Company's sur- vey engineers. These men are sent out every three years to do a survey of poten- tial growth in towns served by the com- pany. Idea is to pre- vent the public from being caught short in its expansion program. In Williams Lake the problem of sw ing needs is fairly simple until one takes into consider- ation the new, and very large, airport. The engineers ran into the same rumors everyone else has been hearing for months now. You know the ones: “It is going to be an Air Force field (choice of U.S. or Canada). There are going to be 1,200 men stationed there (sometimes the ure is 4,500). And so it goes, a guessing game that one can’t indulge in if the answer means his company may be faced with an exceedingly heavy and un- forseen capital expenditure fig- ure, if the guess is wrong Forgot to mention depart- men Mrs. A few days ago, neighbor Tom Larson popped into us the office to show a mush- room that was really a meal The mushroom had been picked by rancher Eddie Herde his property and measured 9 and one-half inches unto itself. on in diameter. Railways remain the most im- portant form of transportation for the movement of people and goods in Canada. Over the past 50 years total of railway milage in operation has more than doubled and today the 44,000 miles of single track, a total ex- only by country has more than ceeded Soviet and the Uuited States. Russia stores, the most valid is the tendency for these out- lets to wander too far afield in their merchandising This has not been too noticeable here — or at least not much more so than grocery stores carrying a few items of children’s wear, but in towns where drug stores stay open every evening the practice becomes more prevalent. Along these lines there is room for self-discipline. The more drug stores take to selling products out of their normal line of trade, the more difficulty they are going to find in ‘selling’ their need for special concessions. We do not feel,however, that the local drug stores have aberrated in this regard to the extent that regu- lation is necessary. Other than a promiise that work on the Chilevtin highway and the proposdd bridge ove the Fraser would be given “top priority,"-members of the Board of Trade got little in the way of-Satisfaction from Hun. P. A.