`IT'S THE DEATH OF AN ICON' A BITTER PILL TO SWALLOW PHARMACY CLOSES AFTER SEVEN DECADES.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

NORTHRIDGE - For 31 years, Barry Pascal delivered medicine to the homes of customers who couldn't get to his Northridge Pharmacy. And when the Northridge Earthquake devastated the region, Pascal was on duty filling prescriptions when others closed their doors.

On Wednesday, he filled his last prescription. On Feb. 12, he'll shut his pharmacy for good, closing down a 71-year-old landmark.

``It's the death of an icon. ... It's like we're having a funeral in here,'' said Pascal, who, with his wife, Shirley, bought the pharmacy in 1972.

Health plans' mandatory mail order drug refills ate up 10,000 of his prescriptions last year. High workers' compensation costs and increasing rent left him with the option of downsizing by one-third, laying off workers and refusing to fill unprofitable prescriptions.

After years of fighting off the inevitable, Pascal decided to walk away. Rather than homogenize the store and make it more like a chain operation, he chose to retire and close the doors on eight decades of history.

Now bright signs proclaiming the going out of business sale line each corner of the homey interior that once sold pearl necklaces alongside get-well cards.

After the 1994 earthquake, the Pascals stayed open long hours, filling prescriptions for customers as far as 30 miles away. They repaid him by helping transform the liquor store next door into a Christmas-theme gift boutique, known affectionately as the Northridge Pole. To help calm quake-rattled nerves, they painted a whimsical Oz-theme mural on the shop's front, proclaiming ``There's Still No Place Like Home.''

``It became the center of the community, the center of the recovery,'' said Wayne Adelstein, president and chief executive officer of the North Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce.

``It found its way into people's hearts. Nothing can take its place - unfortunately, with the economics of health care and the costs of a small business, you just can't make a living there anymore.''

The Pascals ran it as a family, employing wives, cousins, sons, mothers and nephews over the years, and the employees would even send earrings to moms on Mother's Day. It was the community druggist.

Customers who frequented the store for years, picking up their antibiotics and shopping for $5,000 Lladro figurines in its gift shop, seemed shocked that it has come to an end.

``I feel like I'm going to cry,'' said Mary Harbridge, a trauma technician at nearby Northridge Hospital Medical Center. ``It's a loss and Northridge is going to really feel it when they put the locks on. I've been coming here for 30 years and this place feels like my home.''

That was the intent, said Chuck Cadis, Barry Pascal's cousin, who first got him into the business and also is a pharmacist on staff. Though the store made decent money, it wasn't run with an eye for profits.

``He's a person for the customer,'' Cadis said. ``He had to make sure they were satisfied. They had to leave here with a smile on their face and warmth in their heart.''

That instruction became the store's motto, repeated by its employees like a mantra. And it rubbed off on customers, who often came in just to hear Pascal's joke of the day or to linger and chat.

For Maxine Simons, a retired teacher from Reseda, its drugs and gifts helped her raise two kids. As a young wife with a jazz musician husband out on the road, she found herself home alone without friends to turn to for support. Barry Pascal and Northridge Pharmacy became those friends.

``I never knew him socially, I was just a woman coming into a pharmacy, but I got so much out of this store,'' she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

``I'd walk in here and he'd be my link with the world.''

Brent Hopkins, [phone]

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Mary Harbridge of Northridge gives a kiss to Northridge Pharmacy owner Dr. Barry Pascal as cosmetics manager Andree Boyadjian, right, watches.

(2 -- color) Northridge Pharmacy owner Dr. Barry Pascal, second from left, works alongside his large staff behind the counter as the store gets ready to close its doors after 71 years of business.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer