Boise Stores Begin Limiting Amount of Shoppers

"Well, this is new."

My husband's been the only member of our family doing the grocery shopping. He's been working from home, so it's easier for him to pop into Albertsons without having to encounter the rush of essential employees stopping to pick-up groceries on the way home from work. It wasn't until he asked me to stop there to pick-up a few items he forgot in the morning that I realized how truly afraid of being out in public I've become in a very short amount of time.

I was uneasy about going to the grocery store to begin with, but the new sign explaining that the store was limiting the number of customers allowed inside to just over 200 elevated my anxiety. An employee was standing inside the door tallying the number of folks entering and leaving the store so that he could put the outside queue line into action if they reached capacity.

Albertsons stores aren't the only stores trying to cut down on the number of shoppers in their establishment. On Wednesday, Walmart posted a letter from their Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, explaining that because of the behavior that they've seen at their stores across the United States they will now limit the number of customers to about 20% of the store's capacity and would track the numbers through a single entry door.

According to IdahoNews, Fred Meyer has cut the number of customers in their stores to 50% and will use an infrared sensor system to not just help with the count but also track customers per square foot.

A friend told me the Winco she visited in Boise last Thursday was cutting off the number of folks at their store to 200.

These changes went into place around the same time that Costco decided to limit the amount of people who can enter their warehouse with a single membership card to two.