A pharmacy with fortitude
Co-owner attributes 77-year-old drug store's longevity to customers' guidance
Daron Letts
Northern News Services
Thursday, July 16, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Rebel Alliance survived an invasion by the Galactic Empire on the frozen planet of Hoth after a customer purchased the only remote-control imperial AT-AT in stock at Sutherland's Drug Store.
Sutherland's Drug Store pharmacist-owner Stephen Gwilliam displays the kind of old-fashioned pricing machine he used in the downstairs stockroom while working as a stockboy for the business back in 1976. About 25 years after buying the company, Gwilliam and his business partner Dixie Bezaire are in the process of purchasing the building. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo
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"That was one of the best window displays we ever did. It was beautiful - just spectacular," recalls the store's pharmacist-owner, Stephen Gwilliam, thinking back to his days as a student pharmacy technician in 1982. "We had X-Wing fighters suspended with wire. It was really delightful and really frustrating when someone wanted to buy something. It just ruined our whole display."
Sutherland's no longer sells toys. The company's supplier went out of business two decades ago and no other distributor would open an account with a small Northern drug store.
"They all wanted to sell to Walmart," said Gwilliam. "We struggled for a few years because the retail landscape changed so dramatically."
Walmart took over Woolco's Northern base in the early 1990s, increasing the store's stock from 35,000 to 85,000 products almost overnight. Hudson's Bay retreated shortly before Canadian Tire landed. Several more chains have since claimed commercial territory, not to mention the explosion of commerce in cyberspace.
A long time ago...
Things were different when Gwilliam worked at Sutherland's as a part-time stockboy in 1976.
Managing inventory was an art then, when shipments of some products would arrive once per month or sometimes just once per year. The basement was packed with back-up stock.
Lists clipped to the wall in the backroom detailed what items staff needed replenished. The stockboy completed his tasks as efficiently as possible.
Then-co-owner Roy Giles, who joined the pioneering business as a pharmacy manager in 1962 and became partners with the late Doug Finlayson in 1967, noticed the 14-year-old's ability to organize the basement to his own purposes.
"It's easier to fill a stocklist if you know where the inventory is," said Gwilliam.
The store room became organized. Then the teen focused his talents on the disordered store area upstairs.
"It came to the point where I said, 'Can I have the key and I'll go in on Sunday and I'll fix it?'" he said.
Gwilliam got the key. Order came to the shelves and new shampoo displays appeared on Monday morning.
The stockboy was now a merchandiser.
"I didn't have job titles. I did what was needed," said Gwilliam.
At 16 he made his first sale at the till - a 90-cent pack of cigarettes.
A year later he was filling vials behind the counter while being mentored as a pharmacy tech.
After three years of university, Gwilliam graduated to a licensed pharmacist in 1984.
He bought a 10-per-cent share in the company from Giles and the Wallace family the following year.
"It was a good deal," he said. "They lent me the money and I just had to pay it back to them with interest with my profit share. So, technically it didn't cost me anything."
He soon paid cash for another chunk of the business and took over as manager when Giles left in 1990.
He recruited his former co-worker, pharmacy technician Dixie Bezaire, and she moved back North from British Columbia to become a general manager and his business partner.
Sutherland's stopped selling cigarettes long before legislation banned the sale of tobacco in most Canadian pharmacies, an ethical decision that Gwilliam said earned trust and loyalty from the public.
Customers lead the way
Today the store employs 10 staff, half full-time.
Gwilliam loves his job, he said, but insists he is not the boss.
"You're my boss. What you ask for I try to provide," he said.
It is a philosophy that has helped the 77-year-old drug store navigate financial flux and endure corporate competition, he said.
"We've had some of our bosses out there clue us in to some great suppliers, for which I'm extremely thankful. Those people have gone to that place and that place and that place and not been able to find it, but also not been able to find anybody that they could ask how they could get it," he said.
Customer requests have introduced specialty health products and eco-friendly wares to the shelves, made in Canada whenever possible.
Although some box stores discount a few items for less than Sutherland's wholesalers sell them for, being small and local is more of an asset than a disadvantage, said Gwilliam.
"Young people are so world-aware and becoming so concerned about large corporations squeezing out small business," he said. "They're able to look beyond the immediate savings to the prospect of, 'What happens when that's the only retailer that's out there?'"
