“A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory”

“A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory” is a saying that has been put on gift items such as bumper stickers and T-shirts since at least 1996. It’s not known who coined the saying.
 
   
Palmetto Trading
A Bartender is a Pharmacist with Limited Inventory T-Shirts and Gifts
 
29 November 1996, Daily Herald (Chicago, IL), “Best way to survive the holidays, laugh” by Jack Mabley, pg. 16:
“A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.”
     
Google News Archive
8 May 1997, Deseret News, “Bumper crop of bumper stickers might drive you to distraction,” pg. C9, col. 3:
A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.
     
Google Books
Leon Schuster’s lekker, thick South African joke book
By Leon Schuster
Halfway House, South Africa: Zebra
1998
Pg. 68 (bumper stickers):
A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.
 
Google News Archive
14 March 1998, The Day (CT), pg. E5, col. 2:
A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.