Cigarettes 30

Mr. CONTE. What kind of prescription is that?
Dr. PINKNEY. I don't know, sir.

I have some other pictures here that I am not going to present. I hope another member of our group will be able to present them i order to tell you more about a pharmacy that is within our target are that we feel is doing a very good job in the type of presentation that

it makes.

I think I better close now, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CONTE. Doctor, under Maryland law are drugstores permitte to sell liquor for other purposes than medical?

Dr. PINKNEY. Every day except Sunday.

Mr. POTVIN. Mr. Chairman Doctor, would you not agree, sir, the one of the problems that the retail pharmacist faces is that he, him self, suffers from a kind of poverty? That is to say, these people are facing differential pricing, they are facing a host of kinds of compet tion of what is often termed the mamas and the papas in the industryit is terribly tough. The minimum orders to get any discounts from their suppliers are larger than their needs, or at least their assets wi

allow them to place. I went through a number of drugstores like th in the Bronx, in New York. They were sort of small, shabby, some o them were little fly specks. But these were good, honest people, trying

to make a living.

Do you not feel this is why they have taken to carrying, I suppos electric toasters, and liquor, and all the rest, rather than because the are inherently bad people? This is simply their survival response.

it not?

Dr. PINKNEY. Mr. Chairman, in your neighborhood drugstores ar

not so arrayed.

Mr. POTVIN. I beg your pardon?

Dr. PINKNEY. I said in your neighborhood drugstores are not s

arrayed as those are.

Mr. POTVIN. I fully concede this.

Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. Chairman, may we also indicate the other photographs we would like to submit in the record are photographs of an inner-city drugstore which has an absence of any liquor, any liquor displays, it has rest rooms, healthy, clean environment. This is the same population being served by this drugstore located at Harlem and Schroeder Streets, as served by the rest of the pharmacists in the area. Mr. POTVIN. I didn't mean to characterize as a commendable thing the featuring of liquor by drugstores. I was simply asking for your human understanding of it.

Dr. PINKNEY. I Would just like to say, Mr. Chairman, at this point that with the educational processes of this program and our desire to cooperate with the pharmacists, with our upgrading of the neighborhoods within this target area, that we are going to make business better for the pharmacist who renders a service that meets the neighborhood residents' desires.

Mr. POTVIN. Is this the only apothecary-type pharmacy presently in the area, sir?

Dr. PINKNEY. It is the only one in the target area at the present time. Mr. CONTE. These pictures that you show us here, Doctor, and the story you are trying to tell us, is that these stores here are principally concerned with selling liquor rather than promoting prescriptions.

Dr. PINKNEY. I think, sir, that were you have a business venture you have to put your interest where the money comes in. I think that it is entirely possible that under these types of circumstances that health care might receive a minimum value.

Mr. CONTE. I am surprised that the Maryland Legislature has not taken this up before this. You are either in the liquor business or the drug business.

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Mr. POTVIN. Has Provident or any of the area spokesman, your CAP and so on, expressed to the pharmacists the thought that you would be more inclined to agree with them if the rather conspicuous featuring of liquor sales were absent?

Mr. TILDON. I would like to speak to that. We have said and say repeatedly since we have learned of the interest, that we want, as w Dr. Frankel and Dr. English indicated, to sit and plan. I don't think t that the one statement-do this or do that-recognizes the problems involved. As an assistant administrator of a hospital, I recognize there are problems involved in any intricate management process, and t certainly in any small business. The answer is not to say to the legis lature, don't do this, or don't allow this, because this is not our position. Our position is to develop good health services.

Mr. POTVIN. I am sorry. What I was trying to determine-in the course of such negotiations as there may have been, has objection to this kind of thing been lodged with the pharmacists?

Mr. MITCHELL. To the best of my knowledge, we have not done it in the CAP-only because in our conversations with the pharmaceutical association we were simply trying to get to the point of expanding beyond the simple vendor system they were trying to sell us. On the other hand, daily in the newspapers there are citizens' groups protesting the numerous liquor outlets in their neighborhoods. Frankly, we have not had to take up the burden because many groups under the aegis of either CAP or the Provident Hospital are grossly concerned.

Mr. CONTE. Are these pictures typical of the majority of the drug. stores?

Dr. PINKNEY. They are typical of the majority of the drugstores in the target area, sir.

Mr. CONTE. Did you have any one else, Mr. Mitchell?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes. We do appreciate the patience of this Committee. We have three other witnesses and then a very brief wrap-up statement from me. Perhaps we ought to hear from Mr. Charles Burns first, who's the owner of Ethical Pharmacy, the pictures of which you just saw. Then we will hear from Mrs. Ella Strothers, one of the res dents who is serving on the advisory council to the Neighborhood Health Center. First Mr. Burns.

TESTIMONY OF CHARLES BURNS, BALTIMORE, MD.

Mr. BURNS. I don't have too much to say. I am possibly an inarticu late poor man that was described. I am not a pharmacist. I have an interest in three pharmacies. One of my interests-my earliest interests in owning a pharmacy was when my father went to a doctor, Abrahara Jennison, I think his name was, and Dr. Jennison told my father "Don't take that prescription in the neighborhood where you live. you will get it cheaper outside." I never forgot that.

Now, a lot has been said about the Maryland Pharmaceutical Asse ciation. No Negro pharmacists participate in it. Baltimore has never been a liberal-Maryland has never been a liberal State. The phar maceutical association has gotten liberal in the last couple of years Baltimore has begun to get liberal.

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