After 21 years, they have yet to close their doors

Drug Store News, Sept 24, 1990 by Susan Ball

After 21 years, they have yet to close their doors

MARIETTA, Ga. - Wayne H. Preston, who with his wife, Sandra, has operated Bells Ferry Pharmacy here 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for 21 years, has been shot at twice. He has also had knives pulled on him and "the dickens beaten out" of him.

After a bullet grazed his earlobe in 1978, he started carrying a gun- "a big .357" -and added another man, also armed, to the night shift.

"Seeing the gun does unnerve some customers," Sandra said, "but we explain it's for their protection, and ours," They keep a pot of hot coffee for police officers, who she said have been "real good over the years about checking in on us at night."

The Prestons' store is not in a rough neighborhood, but because it's open all night and there are drugs on the premises, they fee the reverberations if there's a crackdown on drugs in nearby Atlanta ("people look further afield") or when a big shipment of illicit drugs arrives in the city (more people come in looking for diabetic syringes, although they neverl sell syringes without a diabetic card).

"The drug problem is increasing," said Preston, who in a recent eight-week period was responsible for jailing nine people, primarily on prescription forgery charges.

"I had to get one down and put handcuffs on him," said the soft-spoken pharmacist, who carries handcuffs. "He and his two companies [who waited in the car] had bad felony records. The girl had a list of 58 doctors, with DEA numbers, addresses and license numbers. They phoned us at 2:05 a.m. and tried to pick up the prescription at around 6:00 a.m."

But Preston and his colleagues have developed a "sixth sence" about such ruses and had already alerted the police, who arrested the trio.

"It takes a special individual to work the night shift," said the 6-foot-3 pharmacist, "because in some situations, you have to let the person know when he comes in the door who's in control."

When the store was built, the Prestons insisted, against all advice, on putting the pharmacy department up front, and Preston believes that's been a key factor enabling them to stay open 24 hours. "The minute customers come in, we see them," he said. "So if an undesirable comes in (over the years we've learned to spot the drunks, etc.), we ask if they need something or ask them to leave."

Yet Preston finds "hidden rewards" that compel him to keep the service available.

He gets many calls in the middle of the night, from elderly customers who have forgotten to get their heart medication refilled, frantic mothers uncertain what to do for a sick child, and people threatening to kill themselves.

"If in these 21 years I've caused one person to get help, it's been worth it," he said.

Preston kept one suicidal woman talking on the phone for over an hour while his co-worker had the phone company trace the call. "She had several kinds of pills and had taken what would have been a lethal dose - she was beginning to blur her workds - when the police kicked her door down," he recalls. Three months later, after therapy, she called to thank him for saving her life.

Once, a tremendous ice storm knocked the power out for three days and nights, and they filled prescriptions by candlelight, until a customer in a four-wheel drive brought them a Coleman lantern to use.

In January 1975, a flu epidemic hit, and Preston and another pharmacist filled almost 1,000 prescriptions in one day. "It was unreal," he remembers. "We had doctors in there. . . and handwriting labels, because we only had two typewriters."

Loyal customers

The pharmacist attributes the store's success to loyal customers: "A lot of people trade with us because the know we're here in the middle of the night.d" And to him, the night shift is "different and enjoyable. You never know what's going to happen next."

The 7,000-square-foot store is about a mile from Kennestone Hospital, which has a large emergency room. Over the yars, the Prestons have built a good working relationship with the hospital and personal friendships with some of the emergency room doctors, who often stop in for a Coke after work.

In addition, there's always a rush when the Lockheed night shift ends at about 12:30 a.m. But why did the Prestons decide, 21 years ago, to launch a 24-hour store with the slogan, "We never close our door"?

Preston, who graduated from Mercer School of Pharmacy in Atlanta, got the idea while working at another pharmacy. "Some doctor started calling me [at home] at 3 or 4 a.m., asking if I would fill a prescription for a sick baby.

"So I began to sit down with some of them and ask how the thought a 24-hour store would do," he continued. After more than 100 such interviews, he decided to take the plunge. "The doctors were elated that somebody was willing to tr. But bets were out among other stores that we wouldn't make it."

Another impetus was the competitive environment they were entering: "We needed a gimmick - something to set up apart."

After the doors of Bells Ferry Pharmacy opened, Preston worked 1 1/2 years before his first day off. He and his partner at the time alternated day and night shifts each month. Sandra stayed home with their two boys in those days. Now, she manages the ront end during the day, doing the scheduling, buying and "pretty much everything."