Supermarket queues

Hello everyone.

Today, I went to a local Sainsbury's supermarket near my home, and despite their one-hour priority period having started, at 0800, I was horrified to see such long queues of 'priority' shoppers, namely the elderly and the vulnerable. 

In the current virus-related circumstances, it might seem fair enough to operate a queuing system. However, it took me 30 minutes to gain priority access. That's not acceptable to the autistic in my opinion, especially if extreme weather such as thundery rain or snowstorms were to occur. Those markers would get hidden, especially in bright sunlight, or get blown away.

There was a queuing area outside the store, but those two-metre gaps in the pedestrian walkway areas were allegedly not clear enough, and there were no 'please queue here' signs, unlike in a local bank or building society. 

Have any of you had similarly difficult experiences? If 30 minutes' waiting at opening time is unacceptable, things could have got worse later in the day, and with Easter coming up, I might be better off using a local convenience store with no car park and only minimal queuing areas. My local supermarket would then be used only to buy whatever isn't available at my local convenience store.

This one-hour priority period ought to have been extended to two hours to include the queuing, and other things should be done to support the elderly and the vulnerable. Any suggestions or opinions would be appreciated.

Parents
  • With social distancing in effect,  I am finding it very difficult to shop.

    I hate waiting in queues,  now they are limiting the number of people in the store and there are enormous queues outside.

    In my area people are taking social distancing very seriously.  In fact I don't even know where the queue ends.  At my local Waitrose,  people are not standing 2 metres apart but more like 10 meters.

    Here is a close up of three people at the top end of the queue.

    I don't know where this queue ends.

  • How do they know that the queue does not go all the way back round again? They could be going round in circles! Or would that be going round in squares? 

    It could even be that the one in front is just randomly standing there and not in a queue at all!

Reply
  • How do they know that the queue does not go all the way back round again? They could be going round in circles! Or would that be going round in squares? 

    It could even be that the one in front is just randomly standing there and not in a queue at all!

Children
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