Belize court backs closure of Fort Street pharmacies over licences

The Fort Street Tourism Village in Belize City is where cruise passengers step ashore. Four pharmacies there sold to that market, and in August 2022 the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW) shut them down¹². More than three years later, in January 2026, a Belize court ruled that the closure was lawful and ordered the pharmacies to pay the government's legal costs¹.

The 2022 raid

On 10 August 2022 Ministry inspectors, accompanied by police, entered four pharmacies at the Tourism Village, ordered them closed and seized pharmaceutical products¹. Amandala reported that the inspection began around 7:00 a.m., that owners and managers disputed the Ministry's authority, that police arrived with warrants and that a "large amount" of controlled drugs was confiscated from two of the four stores and taken to the Central Health Region for storage and documentation². Attorney Godfrey Smith, Senior Counsel, said the government could "expect lawsuits"². Weeks earlier, the company that operated the stores had said that its "business caters strictly to foreign clientele who arrive on cruise ships" and that its products "have never and will never be distributed in the local market"³. The Social Security Board, citing the Ministry's objection to a proposed $7 million loan, said the company "is not in possession of a pharmaceutical license to operate"².

The January 2026 ruling

The four companies argued that the closure and seizure violated their constitutional rights, including protection from arbitrary search and deprivation of property, and disputed receiving the ten-day notice dated 3 August 2022¹. Justice Nadine Nabie disagreed. She found that the pharmacies had operated without proper licences since the regulations took effect in 2017, that inspection reports from 2017 to 2019 had repeatedly warned them, and that they lacked registered chemists and licences to sell controlled drugs and antibiotics¹. The Ministry's enforcement was late, but, the ruling said, "no person can have an expectation or right to the ultra vires relaxation of a statutory requirement"¹. All claims were dismissed with costs¹.

The rules the pharmacies broke

The regulations at issue are the Food and Drugs (Registration, Licensing and Inspection) Regulations, 2017 (Statutory Instrument No. 54 of 2017)⁴. Any premises from which drugs are stored, sold or dispensed to the public is a "pharmaceutical facility," and its owner must apply for a facility licence; failing to do so is an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars (regulation 10)⁴. The competent authority must inspect every facility before granting the licence (regulation 11), which is valid for one year (regulation 12) and must be prominently displayed (regulation 17)⁴. Separately, no drug may be commercialized without registration and a product licence (regulation 3)⁴. Controlled drugs need their own authority: under the Misuse of Drugs Act, they cannot legally be sold without a permit².

The 2017 regime was contested from the start. That November the Belize Community Pharmacist's Association said the Ministry's new GMP certification requirement would force pharmacists to replace products from the US and Europe with products from a Central American provider and could raise medication prices dramatically; all pharmaceutical facilities needed a Ministry licence from 1 November 2017⁵. Enforcement has followed in waves: in 2018 the Ministry closed three pharmacies in the Cayo and Stann Creek districts for operating without a certified pharmacist and selling unauthorized drugs, unable to document their antibiotic sales⁶, and in 2019 it confiscated unregistered medicines from street vendors⁷.

Why tourist pharmacies matter to physicians

Pharmacies that sell to visitors without prescriptions are a known diversion route. In a 2023 study of 40 tourist-oriented pharmacies in four northern Mexican cities, 28 (70.0 %) sold at least one requested controlled substance without a prescription and 11 (27.5 %) sold counterfeit pills; 8 of 27 samples sold as oxycodone contained fentanyl¹⁰. Unsupervised antibiotic sales carry their own cost: a systematic review linked frequent non-prescription use to community antimicrobial resistance¹¹. Belize's 2026 prescription enforcement keeps antibiotics and controlled substances under strict rules "with no exceptions"⁸. The Ministry's Drug Inspectorate Unit, its contact point on medicines¹², took part in a PAHO/WHO workshop in August 2026 that covered suspected substandard and falsified medical products⁹.