SOME PHARMACIES have a ‘locked door please knock’ policy to avoid almost daily robberies. Photo by Tom Godfrey.
Some alert pharmacies in Mimico and South Etobicoke have taken to locking their doors which are only opened from inside by staff for legitimate customers to avoid robberies.
Customers are ordered to knock on the locked front glass door of the pharmacies and are allowed inside by a worker.
Opening their door is not something that the merchants want to do in that many of the customers have been shopping there for decades.
CUSTOMERS HAVE to knock or use side door at this pharmacy.
Toronto Police said the number of pharmacy robberies have more than doubled this year. There were 49 of the robberies in 2021, according to police. There are more than 140 so far this year.
Pharmacists in South Etobicoke say they are seeing robberies take place almost daily or multiple times a day. One Toronto pharmacy was robbed more than 14 times.
In some cases pharmacists or their staff are shot, stabbed or beaten by gun-toting thugs looking for drugs to sell. The gangs are becoming more brazen and violent.
Etobicoke pharmacy owner Michael Malak used to enjoy the job and followed his parents footsteps.
“It’s now scary coming to work,” said Malak, who has been an pharmacist for 10 years.
Malak is considering another trade after his store was robbed in early October by a group of masked men who beat him up and demanded narcotics.
TORONTO POLICE target young carjackers, with some vehicles used for robbing pharmacies. Police photo.
“He (robber) put me in a headlock and started punching me,” Malak said.
Days later four teenage boys around 16-years-old were arrested following three armed carjackings and eight pharmacy robberies in Toronto and York Region.
Police allege one or two boys would approach vehicles pointing a handgun at the occupant while demanding their keys, vehicle and property.
Another group of boys, often travelling in these stolen vehicles, would enter pharmacies in a takeover-style robbery, police say. They would then escape in an awaiting vehicle.
Police and business owners are tracking more thieves with security cameras, installing bullet proof glass or a buzzer system and now having their doors opened by staff.
They worry that turning pharmacies into fortresses will deter patients making it harder to care for them, which is why many got into the business in the first place.