The administrative court was seized on appeal for a transfer case of the Barjouville pharmacy near Chartres. Six competitors do not see it the same way!
Posted on Sep 16, 20 at 8:33 p.m.
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The administrative court of appeal of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) leaned this Tuesday, September 15, 2020 on the transfer file from the pharmacy Barjouville (Eure-et-Loir), near Chartres, who wants to move from the town of the town to the centre commercial Epicentre and his Leclerc hypermarket.
The dispensary – currently located at numbers 27 and 29 rue du Vaugautier – had received in november 2018 the green lightRegional health agency (ARS) of the region Center-Loire Valley. But in july 2019, the administrative court ofOrleans (Loiret) canceled this authorization from the director of local health authorities.
A first in France
Administrative justice had in fact been seized by six competitors of the Barjouville pharmacy, worried about a possible imbalance in the local market: the Bal pharmacies (Shiny), Callemyn (Le Coudray), Juteau (Thivars), Carré d’Or (Lucé), Trois-Ponts (Chartres) and of Saint-Georges-sur-Eure.
The Nantes administrative court of appeal, therefore called upon to re-examine the dispute, will be the first in France to “specify the scope ofordinance of 3 January 2018“, The public rapporteur immediately told the judges.
A government ordinance whose objective was to “simplify” the transfers of pharmacies.
Forty minute walk, round trip
Until then, these transfers could only be authorized if they “did not have the effect of compromising the necessary supply of medicines for the population (…) of the municipality or district of origin”.
This supply is considered “compromised” when there is no dispensary “accessible by pedestrian path or a motorized mode of transport (…) and having locations of parking« .
This access must now be “easy” or “facilitated” by pedestrian or public transport arrangements, and the new premises must meet the standards for welcoming People with reduced mobility (PRM). Two “cumulative conditions” in municipalities which have only one pharmacy, commented the magistrate.
However, in the case of Barjouville, the public rapporteur considers that this link between the village and the Leclerc shopping center is not “easy”: among the three pedestrian paths, the shortest “crosses an area devoid of buildings” and lasts. “Twenty minutes” – or “forty minutes round trip”, he calculated.
It is quite obvious that the access will not be “easy” or “facilitated” … The director of the Regional Health Agency has therefore indeed committed a manifest error of assessment by authorizing the transfer of this dispensary “, in a- he deduces.
He therefore recommended to confirm the judgment of first instance, and to dismiss the small pharmacy.
A “saving of time” for some
“In Barjouville, the population is young and mobile: 96% of households have a car,” replied the lawyer from the Barjouville pharmacy.
The inhabitants are in all cases obliged to move: they do not work on site, there is only one doctor in the town and no food trade, ”she said. “It is imperative to take into account new consumption habits: for a part of the population, there will even be time savings. “
“The judicial officer that we mandated went through the entire process, and did not no particular obstacle for people with reduced mobility, ”added the lawyer.
If the judgment of the administrative court of Orleans were to be confirmed, this would amount to creating new conditions which are not provided for by the texts. “
“In the middle of Beauceron fields”
An analysis that does not share the lawyer of the pharmacy Bal, de Louillard:
It is not enough for the journey to be pleasant: in winter, if the doctor goes by at 6 pm, a mother will have to walk forty minutes at night to collect medicines for her children… It is not possible ” , she stressed.
“We are clearly in the middle of the Beauceron fields,” the lawyer for the five other pharmacies at the origin of the appeal told the Nantes judges. “Getting to the shopping center from the village is an obstacle course! “
He also deplored the “manifest stubbornness” of the Barjouville pharmacy to join Epicenter, since a new request in this direction was filed on July 10, 2020 with the authorities.
“She cannot survive and needs the people passing through the mall,” commented pharmacy lawyer Bal. The Nantes administrative court of appeal, which has reserved its decision, will deliver its judgment in about a month.
GF (PressPepper)
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