Drug probe casts cloud over St. Charles pharmacy closing

For 70 years, Burger Drugs in downtown St. Charles has built a reputation on the kind of down-home customer service and personal attention you might expect from a mom-and-pop pharmacy.

But now, as the Main Street institution's historic tenure comes to an end, the revelation of a recent narcotics investigation into its chief pharmacist has left the business to retire under a cloud of suspicion.

"We feel very hurt," longtime operator Bob Burger said Monday of publicity over the investigation involving his son and lead pharmacist, Mark Burger. "(Mark) is a very loving young man."

According to public court documents, the Illinois State Police North Central Narcotics Task Force launched an investigation into allegations of drug dealing against Mark Burger in January - about five months before the store stopped filling prescriptions and confirmed its pending closure last week.

The probe involved several undercover surveillance operations outside the store, 9 E. Main St. Authorities also executed a search warrant at Burger's home in Elburn and seized nearly $10,000 in cash, three computer hard drives hundreds of methadone pills and other, miscellaneous pharmaceuticals, according to court documents.

In early June, Burger agreed to have his pharmacy license indefinitely suspended by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation because of the allegations. Though he neither admitted nor denied guilt, Burger chose not to dispute the suspension, department spokeswoman Susan Hofer said.

Edward D. Rickert, a Downers Grove attorney who represented Burger in the suspension case, declined to comment. "At this point," Eckert said, "we need to kind of let the process take its course."

Burger, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Monday, but his father denied the investigation had anything to do with the family business closing.

"Oh, no," he said. "It just happened to be the timing. We've been trying to sell the store for three and a half months but there's not many buyers out there right now for an independent pharmacy."

The investigation into Burger's son was prompted by an anonymous tip made to Naperville Crime Stoppers about a man who allegedly had been buying large quantities of the painkiller Vicodin from Mark Burger illegally, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in late March.

The tipster told police the alleged customer had spent more than $250,000 obtaining pills, as many as 1,000 at a time, the affidavit states.

In an ensuing surveillance operation, authorities said in the affidavit that they negotiated the illegal purchase of more than 200 Hydrocodone pills from the man suspected of buying them from Burger. Undercover officers also staked out the pharmacy and, on multiple occasions, reported seeing the man enter Burger Drugs briefly just before or after regular business hours.

In one case, investigators said they witnessed the man leave with a hat containing what appeared to be a white bag. He then stuffed the hat in the engine compartment under the hood of his vehicle, according to the affidavit.

In February, state police pulled over the man after one of his stops at the pharmacy and found him to be in possession of $1,861 and several unmarked bottles of prescription pills, the affidavit said. A subsequent search of his home yielded hundreds more pharmaceuticals, some made out to other individuals, according to the document.

The man later told police he had been buying drugs illegally from Burger for about three years and estimated he obtained 15,000 pills alone in the prior year, according to the affidavit, which resulted in the April 22 searches of Burger's home and the pharmacy.

The status of the investigation today remains unclear. The drug task force did not return a message seeking comment, and many local officials weren't talking.

Bob Burger said Drug Enforcement Administration officials visited his store as recently as Friday.

He declined to discuss the case in any detail, but noted he appreciates that most customers are "being very loving about this whole thing."

"We're just going to let it rest," he said.