Fewer customers allowed in Lexington Kroger stores to combat spread of coronavirus
Fewer customers will be allowed in Kroger stores beginning Tuesday.
The company announced Monday that, effective April 7, it will limit the number of customers inside a store at one time to an amount that’s “50 percent of the international building code’s calculated capacity” as part of additional measures to combat the spread of COVID-19, or the coronavirus.
An example shared by the company: the standard capacity for a grocery store is 1 person per 60 square feet, so under the new limit the allowed amount of patrons would be 1 per 120 square feet.
Kroger said it will monitor the number of customers per square feet using QueVision technology, which it says already provides a count of customers entering and exiting stores using infrared sensors and predictive analytics.
“We will be able to more efficiently support our new capacity limits, creating a safer environment for our customers and associates,” Yael Cosset, Kroger’s chief technology and digital officer, said in a news release.
The Kroger on Euclid Avenue in Lexington on Sunday began limiting the number of customers that could enter the store to “one per household,” or approximately 60 people in the store at one time, according to a staff member. That Kroger was the only one of 11 in the city that was monitoring the number of visitors inside the store as of about 4 p.m. Monday. It also had installed a marker board with availability information about items that have become highly sought after, such as bathroom tissue and hand sanitizer.
When the Herald-Leader visited, a line had formed consisting of about six customers waiting to go inside the Euclid Avenue store. Other stores the Herald-Leader visited were not yet tracking customers who entered but had installed plexiglass between cashiers and customers in addition to floor decals encouraging visitors to stand six feet apart near check-out lines.
The Kroger store located at Tates Creek Centre was not yet monitoring visitors but had placed a limit of eight visitors at one time to its Wine and Spirits companion location.
Some Kroger stores in Ohio have begun experimenting with one-way aisles in order to discourage congestion. No stores in Lexington had yet adopted that practice and it was not specified as a measure that Kroger will be adopting nationwide on Tuesday.
“We are currently testing this in a select number of stores,” a Kroger spokesperson said.
Walmart on Friday announced a nationwide policy limiting the number of customers in each store to about 20 percent of capacity. At least two Walmart employees in Kentucky, including one in Lexington, have tested positive for coronavirus, and a worker at the Kroger on Leestown Road tested positive on March 25.
The Save A Lot store on Southland Drive on Monday had posted a sign instructing customers to limit their entry to one person per household but it was not actively monitoring foot traffic.
