Prescription pizza? Dominos delivering for burned Medicine Shoppe

April 11, 2014
Santa Paula News

When fire struck a strip mall laundry mat Sunday night it also heavily damaged a popular pharmacy, but customers weren’t left without their medication when pizza delivery drivers started bringing their pills.

Drivers for Dominos Pizza, owned by Hishmeh Enterprises, which also owns The Medicine Shoppe in the same strip mall, located at 431 Santa Paula-Ojai Road/Highway 150 started delivery medication to customers Monday.

According to Sam Hishmeh, prescriptions are being filled at The Medicine Shoppe’s second location in Ojai and being delivered by Dominos drivers who were also out of a work for about 48 hours due to damage from the fire, which caused an estimated $100,000 damage.

The service will be offered until The Medicine Shoppe reopens in six to eight weeks.

“It could have been a lot worse,” Hishmeh said of the fire that almost destroyed the laundry mat, “extensively” damaged the pharmacy but only closed Dominos and a fourth strip mall tenant, a liquor store, for a few days.

Investigators are still looking for a cause but it is suspected the two-alarm fire started in or behind a clothes dryer.

“We’re making sure that everybody that has and continues to do business with The Medicine Shoppe is well taken care of, that’s for sure,” said Hishmeh, who noted the delivery of medication began promptly on the day following the fire.

A table was set up outside the closed pharmacy where personnel are taking prescriptions and setting up deliveries.

“We will take care of the customers, we want to make sure they are not left high and dry,” while continuing to look at service options.

Hishmeh said a pharmacy has to adhere to strict state regulations and guidelines and any changes of location must be approved every step of the way: “One option is perhaps opening in a trailer, another is a temporary location in town to use,” until the damaged store is ready to be reoccupied. 

Hishmeh said, “We should have a solution for our customers by the end of the week... Santa Paula has been very good for us. We are committed to Santa Paula and we are coming back.”

The pharmacy is operated and managed by Amani Hishmeh, a pharmacist who is married to Hishmeh’s brother Nick Hishmeh; Sam Hishmeh said two other sisters-in-law are pharmacists.

The 10-member staff of the Santa Paula Medicine Shoppe is temporarily working at the Ojai pharmacy. 

“Our employees are all long-term employees and we consider them family... they will have their jobs now and in the future.”

Dominos was the first of the pizza franchises purchased by Hishmeh Enterprises more than 20 years ago and the company now owns more than 70 outlets throughout Southern and Central California.

“All that matters,” said Hishmeh, “is that no one got hurt... at the end of the day it’s just money and it doesn’t matter.”

Customers of the Santa Paula Medicine Shoppe can call 646-0106 for more information.





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