Stop & Shop Implements One-Way Aisle Traffic

It's been quite a week for new policies at SouthCoast grocery stores. Market Basket kicked it off with placing a limit on the number of shoppers that could be in their stores at once. Once the capacity was hit, shoppers would be required to wait outside until people checked out and wheeled their carts out of one of the exits. The scene on Saturday morning was reminiscent of the line down Purchase Street at Bar 908 back in the day.

Today, a new policy was implemented at Stop & Shop. Shoppers were greeted with handsome blue arrows indicating the suggested flow of traffic. I use the word "suggested" because shoppers (for the most part) were doing a very poor job following the brand new rule.

Granted, today was the first day, so it will probably take a little getting used to.

The new rules, needless to say, are to promote social distancing at the store. Shoppers will notice conspicuous neon pink signs posted around the store. They read, "One-way traffic only. To better enable social distancing, each aisle is now one-way traffic only. Please follow the arrows to shop and remain 6 feet apart from the other shoppers."

The most difficult area of the store to navigate with the new arrows seems to be the produce section, while the aisles themselves seemed to be a bit more manageable. The new traffic flow does encourage shoppers to logically go through all of the aisles in order to stay on course. I'm not sure if I've ever gone down a few of them.