Weaponless robbery not painless

Deepa Bharath

NEWPORT BEACH -- In what turned out to be a bizarre, weaponless,

non-threatening heist, a 53-year-old man held up a pharmacy here Tuesday

afternoon while demanding a specific brand of pain medication, officials

said.

Michael Gamble, who lives in a boat off of Coronado, walked into Evan

Stein Pharmacy in the 400 block of Newport Center Drive and passed a

piece of paper to the pharmacist across the counter, said Newport Beach

Sgt. Steve Shulman.

Shulman said the paper, which looked as if it were a page out of a

pharmaceutical company’s notepad, had only one word written on it --

Oxycontin, the name of the prescription medication Gamble was after.

The pharmacist, who could not decipher the meaning of the message,

approached Gamble and asked him what he wanted, Shulman said.

“That was when [Gamble] told him it was a holdup and that he wanted

the pain medication,” Shulman added. Shulman said Oxycontin is

classified as a synthetic opiate, one that acts as a pain reliever and

possibly as an anti-depressant.

He said police arrested Gamble without incident but have found

evidence that he did recently suffer an injury. Shulman said Gamble

cooperated with officers and told them he had tried unsuccessfully to

reach his doctor to get the medication or a prescription for the

medication.

“There were no weapons involved,” Shulman said. “It was a weird

incident.”

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Deepa Bharath covers public safety and courts. She can be reached at

(949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com