Cyprus’ pharmacists on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the absurd opening hours, which forces all pharmacies to close between 1.30pm and 3pm every day except on Wednesdays and Saturday, on which they close a 1pm for the day. Eighty per cent of the 518 pharmacists who voted in Wednesday’s EGM were in favour of keeping the ludicrous, current arrangement by which all are obliged to close for 90 minutes in the middle of the day.

In Cyprus it is impossible to buy a box of Panadol at 2pm because all chemists are obliged by law to be closed and all other retail outlets, such as newsagents and supermarkets, are banned from selling medicine for which no prescription is required. It was not always like this. While pharmacies always had strictly regulated opening hours, people could buy non-prescription drugs from the neighbourhood periptero. Some 10 years ago, the pharmacists’ association persuaded deputies to make the sale of non-prescription drugs a pharmacy monopoly, so they could stay closed, for as long as they wanted, without losing a single sale. The convenience of the public is irrelevant for the pharmacists.

Health Minister Michael Damianos had proposed six different opening options to the association of pharmacists, which put these to the vote on Wednesday. There is also an ongoing court case with a group of pharmacists taking legal action against the state for regulating their opening hours and thus restricting their ability to trade. A court case on the same issue, before EU membership, ruled that it was the powers of the pharmacists’ association to dictate the opening hours. This was back in the day when supporting the free market was considered a crime and the state regularly interfered in the workings of the economy.

It would be no surprise if the Cyprus courts fail to see that regulating opening hours runs against the idea of competition and constitutes a form of collusion – as suppliers meet and decide the hours they will serve the public. This restricts one aspect of competition – opening times – which is why some pharmacists want it ended. The number of pharmacies has increased significantly since the introduction of Gesy and drug prices are fixed by Gesy, which means profit margins of pharmacies have been squeezed.

One way to increase revenue and perhaps profits, is for a pharmacy to stay open longer hours – not just at lunchtime but also on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and beyond the 6.30pm statutory closing time. It is incredible that in this day and age a professional association has the legal power to dictate to its members the hours they can serve the public. And as in an authoritarian state, the police are used to enforce this illiberal law, reporting pharmacists who ignore the official opening hours – hefty fines are imposed.

As the pharmacists could not be relied on to put an end to the restricted opening hours, we have to rely on the courts issuing a sensible ruling. A ruling that respects the right of pharmacists to serve the public when he/she wants to and places no restrictions on the right to trade.