Mass Market News

By Three Raley’s employees, all wearing masks, were chatting near the floral department at the store on Freeport Boulevard on Tuesday when they spotted a problem: A co-worker was supervising the self-serve checkout aisle without a mask. An employee jogged over to the offender, handed her a mask and helped her put it on. Mission accomplished. Oh, how things have changed in the supermarket business. Until just a few days ago, the grocery store seemed like one of the last normal places left in the coronavirus age — deemed essential to society, open for business, a place where people could see their neighbors, even if they had to keep their distance. Relatively few shoppers wore masks. Except for the panic buying over paper products and sanitizers, a trip to the supermarket felt like a getaway of sorts, an island of relative calm in a world gripped by a pandemic. Local news has never been more important Subscribe for unlimited digital access to the news that matters to your community. Not so much anymore. Acrylic shields at the checkout stand are as commonplace as fresh strawberries. Customers seem to be getting more attentive about social distancing, following the floor markers at checkout lines spaced six feet apart. Many employees and customers are donning masks. Stricter measures are coming. This week Safeway said it will place directional arrows in its aisles to encourage one-way traffic and reduce congestion. Nugget Markets is taking employees’ temperatures when they report to work and requiring them to wear masks. Starting next week Nugget will require customers to wear masks, too. The changes come as public health officials, wary of an anticipated surge in COVID-19 cases in the coming weeks, are starting to discourage visits to the supermarket. On Monday Los Angeles County’s public health director said residents should try to have food delivered instead. An even sterner warning came Saturday from Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, who said: “This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store and not be going to the pharmacy.” Customers aren’t necessarily heeding […]

Source: www.sacbee.com