New protocols are in place at many of Airdrie’s grocery stores and big box retailers, as they work to prevent the potential spread of COVID-19.
London Drugs has implemented several measures, according to president and chief operating officer Clint Mahlman, to ensure shoppers and employees keep a safe distance from each other. In addition, he said, the company has initiated stricter cleaning and sanitation practices.
“Retail has had experience with this from SARS, H1N1 and other flus, so we already had a number of standard cleaning processes in place,” he said. “But we’ve obviously amped those up to be as frequently as each time a customer touches a pin pad, for example.
“We’ve had lots of internal education and reinforcement of hand washing, physical distancing and avoiding touching the nose, mouth or eyes.”
Enforcing government-directed social distancing protocols between customers and employees has been one of the drug store’s biggest concerns, according to Mahlman.
“We really ask customers to help us out with that,” he said “We’re trying to live up to our government mandate of being an essential service and keep open, and we want to do everything we can to protect our staff and our customers.”
To ensure physical distancing by the checkouts, Mahlman said, London Drugs stores have set up markers on the floor six feet apart, suggesting where shoppers should stand while waiting in line to pay. Additionally, he added, stores have started to set up Plexiglas dividers to further distance employees and customers.
“There’s lots of signage in the stores to help reinforce that message,” he said. “We have overhead announcements that are going on about every six minutes to remind customers to respect physical distancing requirements – it’s a constant bombardment of messages to customers and staff, to help reinforce that.”
As well, Mahlman said London Drugs recently announced dedicated shopping hours for frontline health-care workers and first responders. The company is offering those groups exclusive access to the store during the last hour of operations – 8 to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 7 to 8 p.m. Sunday.
“What we were hearing from a lot of our customers who worked in health care or emergency services was that the nature of their long shifts, especially with most grocery stores closing at 8 p.m., [meant] they couldn’t access food or places to buy their essentials,” Mahlman said.
Eligible first responders include firefighters, police officers, ambulance paramedics and active military personnel. Frontline health-care workers include hospital workers, care home staff, medical centre employees and pharmacists.
In order to gain entry into the store, Mahlman said, those eligible will be asked to show employer ID or credentials from their place of work.
Grocery retailers, meanwhile, are taking similar measures to flatten the curve of COVID-19, as shoppers continue to flock in and out of the stores to stock up on essentials.
Most have implemented techniques to enforce physical distancing, such as installing markers on the floor by the tills or permitting only a certain number of shoppers into the store at a time.
Others have greeters at the entrances and exits, offering shoppers a squirt of hand sanitizer or disinfecting shopping carts before they enter the store.
The Calgary Co-op in Sierra Springs has begun a wage top-up of $2.5 per hour for all its frontline workers who are paid hourly, according to a March 25 announcement. The raises, which are retroactive to March 8, will be in place until May 2, when the situation will be reassessed.
