With an alarming increase in the number of pharmacy robberies, the Windsor Police Service has developed a tool to help pharmacy owners prevent the crime.
It's a checklist of various elements of the pharmacy and building that makes it tougher for a robber to be effective.
Windsor Police Director of Planning and Physical Resources - Barry Horrobin - says things like counter height, sight lines, lighting and a video surveillance system are some of the points.
He says the checklist is available online for anyone to use: "we encourage and hope all pharmacies will embrace this tool and do the self audit any questions they can contact ourselves and we'll be happy to help them work through their tools to make improvements to make their workplaces safer and more secure"
Pharmacist Peter Dumo at the Novacare Pharmacy on Walker Road did a walk through with Horrobin and plans to make alterations: "we were thinking of more lighting here anyway just because it gets dark here in the winter, the video tape I always thought 24 hours was ample but now 7 days makes a lot of sense if you're trying to catch someone who's casing you, that makes a lot of sense"
Dumo says time-delayed safes for narcotics would make a difference, but only if every pharmacy has them as has happened in BC.
He says the time-delayed safes are in place in BC and in at least one pharmacy chain in the US and have been found effective.
Horrobin says he or another officer can help the pharmacies go through the checklist and do a followup later.
He says it's a Windsor initiative, but any of the 100 or so pharmacies across Windsor-Essex can access it from the WPS website.