Stop & Shop Sets Aside Hours For Elderly, Vulnerable Customers

Stop & Shop, a regional grocery chain in the Northeast, will begin offering special hours reserved for older customers who are most at risk of coronavirus.

Starting on Thursday, the grocery store will only let customers ages 60 or older into its stores between the hours of 6 and 7:30 am. They will be allowed to enter before any other customers when the stores are at their cleanest, the company said. Stop & Shop also said this will allow for a less crowded environment in which it is more feasible to practice social distancing.

"Now, more than ever, it's important we come together as a community to support each other during challenging times," said Stop & Shop president Gordon Reid in a statement on Monday. "Part of that is showing compassion and care for some of our neighbors who are most vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus. According to the CDC, that is members of the population who are age 60 and older."

Stop & Shop, which operates 400 stores throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey, said these special hours will be available every day and it will have a designated entrance for shoppers. The store will not be requiring identification, but said employees reserve the right to ask customers to leave if they are not a member of this age group.

The initiative is a response to the crowded, overrun stores that have become commonplace across America in recent days as shoppers rush to stockpile food, toilet paper and other necessities. For older customers, touching contaminated grocery carts or coming into close contact with other shoppers who may be carrying the virus could be deadly.

Stop & Shop is the first major U.S. grocery chain to offer special hours for older customers. However, it has become commonplace in Australia in recent days, where the nation's biggest chains said they would be giving the elderly and disabled the run of the store between 7 and 8 am. Many local stores have also implemented similar measures.

National grocery chains like Walmart, Trader Joe's and Publix have all cut their hours in an effort to give employees more time to clean stores and restock shelves. Kroger and others are also actively hiring additional workers. On Monday, Amazon said it would be looking to add 100,000 warehouse and delivery employees to help meet heightened demand.

Older customers are also able to order groceries through online delivery services offered by Stop & Shop's Peapod, Walmart, Amazon, Instacart and others. However, due to heightened demand, customers have reported that delivery times are often extended or unavailable.

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