‘It’s getting goofy.’ Lexington shoppers find long lines, empty toilet paper aisles.
The bath tissue aisles of many Lexington-area grocery stores were packed with shoppers but nearly devoid of toilet paper on Friday afternoon.
Of the five area stores that a reporter visited, only one—the Euclid Kroger—had toilet paper on the shelves, and that store had relatively little. Grocers across the country have announced limits on the amount of paper products and medicines that shoppers can purchase as worries over the coronavirus pandemic push more people through the grocery store doors.
Paper towels, pain killers, cleaning supplies, canned foods, rice, beans and ramen noodles were also notably depleted across every store but were not completely sold out. Checkout lines were long at Costco, Walmart and Kroger, but shoppers were calm and orderly.
“It’s getting goofy,”said Barbara Szubinkska while pushing a shopping cart full of essentials at the Kroger on Nicholasville Road. She added that things were “not crazy” but that many shoppers felt a “sense of uncertainty.”
Szubinkska said she felt the mass purchase of food and toilet paper was warranted and that concerned people had a “drive to be doing something.”
“As one would expect, paper products, cleaning supplies and other items are in high demand as customers prepare for the possible impact of COVID-19,” a statement from Walmart released Tuesday said. Local store managers are able to limit the amount of products customers can buy for products that are in “unusually high demand.”
Kroger stores and their supply chains across the country are “working to ensure that the food, medicine and cleaning supplies our customers need are reaching our stores as quickly as possible,” a statement from the company said in early March. The chain has limited shoppers to just three packs of paper products, cold and flu medicines, hand sanitizers and cleaning products, signs posted in the Euclid and Nicholasville Road stores showed.
Comment requests were sent to Walmart, Kroger and Costco, but are yet to be returned.
Almost every shopping cart at the Costco in Hamburg had paper towels and a pack of plastic water bottles. Checkout lines at midday Friday were eight or nine carts long.
Costco shopper Mark Lavelle said he was surprised to find the parking lot nearly full at a time when most people might be at work. But he said he understood why some would be taking time away from work to stock up on supplies.
“It’s been relatively calm,” Lavelle said.
Lavelle said he was at the store on Wednesday and was told they were out of toilet paper. On Friday, he still found no toilet paper.
David Boyko, who was shopping at the Euclid Kroger, said he thought buying up toilet paper made sense for people who feared that they’d be stuck inside for awhile. He said buying plastic water bottles made less sense, because he didn’t anticipate that running water would be shut off.
“Everything’s not just going to stop,” Boyko said.
Kentucky American Water announced on Friday that the company would not cut off water for nonpayment during the outbreak and is restoring water services to those who haven’t paid.
Come fall, Szubinkska said she hoped food banks would be full of donations from people who realized they didn’t need so many packages of “beans and chickpeas.”
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 4:43 PM.