After months of waiting for government approval and vaccine deliveries, the husband-and-wife team behind Mickey Fine Pharmacy, Jeff Gross and Gina Raphael, have finally been able to start offering vaccinations.
According to Gross, he and his team of pharmacists have registered between 5,000 and 6,000 vaccinations in the past 10 months.
“We are doing more vaccinations than the chain stores,” said Raphael.
Mickey Fine, a chain of pharmacies around Los Angeles with a main location in Beverly Hills, is unique in its field.
“A lot of pharmacies have been dabbling in vaccinations,” said Gross. “But only a very small number of pharmacies across the county have created a dedicated vaccination center [like we have].”
“Only a very small number of pharmacies across the county have created a dedicated vaccination center [like we have].”
— Jeff Gross, Mickey Fine Pharmacy
While Raphael pointed out that Shabbat is her husband’s only day off, Gross said he deploys “at least two dedicated pharmacists a day doing vaccinations. The chains are asking the pharmacists to fill prescriptions and to do vaccinations. It’s bad enough the pressure they put on [them] just to fill prescriptions. Now they are adding vaccinations onto their plate. Our pharmacists are just dedicated to doing vaccinations. That’s all.”
Gross’s pharmacists can attend to more than 100 vaccinations a day.
He has heard rumors that a fourth dose for the immunocompromised may soon gain approval. One of his biggest frustrations is when news outlets speak about the vaccine because the pharmacy gets inundated with phone calls.
With the Omicron surge in the past month, there has been an extra push for people to get their booster shots as well, Raphael said.
In this business, there seems to be no time to kick back and relax. However, Gross, a father of three, enjoys helping children with getting over their fear of shots. Recently, a young girl named Charlie came in with her parents and didn’t want to get her second shot.
Gross said, “She went to her pediatrician’s office for her second shot. They couldn’t vaccinate her. She made it so that they chose not to do it. They went to a second place for a shot but couldn’t do it there, either.”
He spent an hour going back and forth with Charlie, he said.
“‘I said, ‘Charlie, who is stronger, you or me?’ I said, ‘You are.’ I said, ‘Who is more stubborn?’ I said ‘I am. My job is to help you get through the vaccination.’ There was lots of screaming, lots of explaining. I was trying to use different kinds of techniques. After about an hour, as a last-ditch effort, I said, ‘My pharmacist is leaving. We are going to have to do this now.’”
Charlie’s father held her tight, and she started making a scene. Gross told her she had to sit down, close her eyes and count to five.
“We did it,” he said. “When I finally got her vaccinated, then she said, ‘It’s no big deal.’ From now on, this child never again is going to be afraid of needles.”
Gross received a beautiful letter and picture from Charlie after that.
“She was like, ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ and then brought me [a] picture,” he said. “I have put it up in the vaccination area.”
Gross recalled the long months that passed before the vaccines arrived at Mickey Fine on Roxbury Drive. He said they were not able to service the community that was first eligible to be vaccinated because the vaccines took so long to get there.
“By the time we did get access, it was age 50 and over when we first got it, and then it dropped to 18 when we started actually having quantity.”
Gross and Raphael, a marketing specialist, were determined to make deep inroads from the time the pandemic arrived.
“When the pandemic first happened, we brought in special masks from Israel that actually kill germs upon contact,” Raphael said.
The pandemic has taken a toll on the staff of 20 at the Roxbury location, because the store is open seven days a week. They’ve hired four pharmacists to cover shifts and give vaccinations.
“I have been beyond blessed with dedicated staff that have the same [or] similar passion of being there for our clients,” Gross said.
In the 1950s, the Roxbury Drive store was known as Schwab’s Pharmacy, a sister store to the glamourous Schwab’s on Sunset Boulevard. In 1962, Mickey Fine bought it. Ownership changed hands a few years later, when Fine sold it to Ted Buchalter. In 1994, Mel Gross, Jeff’s father, acquired it. But when he died less than 10 years later, Gross and Raphael purchased it from his widowed mother and expanded it to several locations.
Raphael and Gross have three daughters, all adopted from China; the two older ones have worked at the family store.
“Right before Covid, I started studying Daf Yomi” said Raphael, who goes to Young Israel of North Beverly Hills with her family. “I study the Talmud every day with 500 women across the globe with an amazing rabbanit online.
“It has truly been our Judaism that has given us hope and belief to see this through.”
Despite the difficulties, Gross is motivated to keep working hard because it’s his goal to help people.
He said, “I am doing this because I want to make a difference in people’s lives. Every day.”
