UNITY (AP) – A Unity man was arrested Friday on a robbery charge following a police chase that was triggered by a lunch-hour holdup at a drugstore in this central Maine town, state police said.

Shawn Kivlin, 28, was apprehended at gunpoint as the chase ended on Route 131 in Appleton when his car ran over a spike mat that state police had placed on the road.

A knife, a handgun and pill bottles taken from the Unity Pharmacy were recovered, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.

Five customers and four employees were in the drugstore when a man armed with a gun and a knife entered, demanded drugs and fled with several pill bottles.

One of the pharmacists followed the robber in his own car for about a mile, relaying a description of the green sedan to police.

The pill bottles given to the robber contained M&M candies, not drugs.

The robbery was the third in three months in the region, all occurring on the 21st of the month. McCausland said police planned to meet Monday to look at possible links to the Dec. 21 robbery in Pittsfield and the Nov. 21 robbery in Fairfield.

Police also were investigating whether those holdups might be linked to a robbery at the Bangor Savings Bank in Unity earlier this month, McCausland said.

Kivlin, who faces several motor vehicle violations in addition to the robbery charge, was being held in the Waldo County Jail.