Operator of Newmarket’s oldest pharmacy retiring, with many thanks to community

A familiar face in Newmarket is stepping down from her role as new entrepreneurs just take more than a historic pharmacy in downtown Main Road.

Anne Robins is retiring and transfering ownership of Robins I.D.A. pharmacy to a group of pharmacists, which includes Raj Savani, Ramy Ramzy, and Niki Shah. She expended 37 decades with the organization.

“I consider downtown Newmarket is amazing,” reported Robins, with an psychological tone. She experimented with to hold back her tears. “It truly is the persons who have occur in this article and my staff members.”

Robins feels confident the new proprietors will choose treatment of the shop as it blazes a route toward the foreseeable future while cherishing the legacy of the making.

“They are enthusiastic about maintaining on the custom of significant-high-quality professional assistance and getting section of the group,” mentioned Robins. “Downtown Newmarket is the heart of Newmarket and it’s only having superior. They are youthful, enthusiastic, and major on unbiased pharmacies. They will get it to the upcoming level.”

The retail outlet has a deep-rooted history in city. It was manufactured in the late 19th century and is the oldest pharmacy in Newmarket. 

Robins stated the cellphone quantity of the keep at the time was only 6 on the rotary telephone dial. 

The pharmacy has been in the Robins household for 63 a long time, when Bill Robins purchased the retailer in the 1950s and transferred ownership to his daughter, Anne, in 1991.

“My spouse and children took this about in 1957, but there has been a pharmacy listed here because the turn of the century,” said Robins.

Robins spoke fondly of the local community, reflecting on occasions when shoppers would convey items to her when she was pregnant and how really hard they worked to prevail over the COVID-19 pandemic with each other.

“It was phenomenal how challenging we labored,” said Robins. “When I initially graduated, we under no circumstances did injections, then we started out with flu photographs and we did them after a year. I despise to say it, but when it arrived to COVID, and we commenced vaccinating, we ended up virtually extra vaccinators than pharmacists. The demand from customers and appreciation of the community was incredible.”

Robins and her spouse, Chris, experienced conversations for months with the new owners, who are renaming it Robins Procare Pharmacy to maintain the legacy hooked up.

“We have the similar vision as what they have which is to carry on as is, if not expand on what they have extra than anything at all else,” claimed Savani, co-proprietor. “We experienced those people discussions and felt like it was a right in good shape and I consider it is a proper match.”

Savani, Ramzy, and Shah are fired up about the keep, preserving the degree of assistance, and rising with the present group. 

“This is one particular of the reasons why we ended up in a position to come to an arrangement mainly because we are on the similar site in phrases of retaining all people on and similarly that’s specifically what we’re going to be continuing,” reported Savani.

Shah finds it important to maintain the standing of the pharmacy by incorporating new engineering and contributing to the community when they have an chance. 

“We are wondering of sponsoring some activities to give again to the group,” mentioned Shah, co-owner.

The group owns other unbiased pharmacies and health-related centres in the Better Toronto Spot, which includes in Maple, Woodbridge and Richmond Hill.

Procare is element of the I.D.A. brand name. Pharmacies are not managed by the corporation, instead pharmacists have a say in how it operates.

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