Pharmacist Hal Goldman opened his shop, Generic Depot, in a Tamarac strip mall a year and a half ago. He built up a loyal clientele fueled by the nearby retirement communities.
"They know your name, they say hello, how are you, they don't do that at the other stores," says Lois Dolin, who was shopping with her husband, Stanley.
"It reminds me of a neighborhood pharmacy when I was a kid," Stanley Dolin said.
The City of Tamarac and the Broward Sheriff's Office have a different view of Generic Depot. Neither the city nor BSO would comment for this story, but a city staff report makes it clear they want the place shut down because they suspect it's a pill mill.
According to the report, Goldman's pharmacy bought more Oxycodone -- an addictive narcotic pain killer often used illicitly -- than the other 10 pharmacies in the same zip code combined.
Goldman hasn't seen that staff report, and says he's never had problems with BSO.
"No issues, no comments, no discussion with me that we were a problem at all," Goldman said. So what's the city upset about?
"We don't really know, " Goldman answered.
Tamarac's city attorney sent Goldman's lawyer a letter which anounced the city's intention to revoke Goldman's business license.
"He's not breaking the law, he's never been cited for anything," said Michael Bernstein, Goldman's lawyer.
"We do not fill fraudulent prescriptions," Goldman says. "Every prescription we do is verified if it's a controlled substance, as required by law."
The city doesn't overtly accuse Goldman of breaking any laws. The number one reason cited in the letter for trying to kick Goldman out is that he makes "an inordinately high volume of calls" to the sheriff's office. Goldman admits that, saying he's scrupulous about calling in questionable prescriptions.
"It's not that they're fraudulent, it's more that people may be seeing more than one doctor, so we monitor that, we call the doctors, we do more due dilligence than probably most stores do," Goldman said.
His lawyer says it's a Catch-22: Goldman turns in a lot of questionable prescriptions, which results in a lot of arrests of questonable characters, and the city cites that as a reason to revoke his license. He's allegedly attracting a bad element to the shopping center.
"He's doing his job, now he's being punished for it," Bernstein says.
NBC Miami spoke to two of Goldman's neighboring merchants and neither one had anything negative to say about Goldman or the pharmacy.
The city's staff report paints a different picture. In a one-year period, there were 99 calls for police service, 47 disturbance calls, 55 arrests and more than 6,000 pils seized in or around Generic Depot. Many of those arrested were not even from Broward County, which suggests they were traveling out of their way to this small pharmacy for a reason.
According to the report, which was emailed to NBC Miami by a city staff person, BSO estimates that the hours it spent working cases generated by Generic Depot equate to one full-time employee's salary for a year.
Goldman says he's got a great relationship with the Drug Enforcement Administration, saying he often allows agents to conduct surveillance and sting operations in his pharmacy. He says if he's doing something wrong, they would've arrested him and charged him with a crime long ago. He also points out that his license to practice pharmacy is in good standing with the State of Florida.
Goldman will have a chance to present his side to the city commission on Wednesday morning, when commissioners will vote to either let him stay in business or force him to swallow the bitter pill of eviction.
