Grocery store chains set up hours just for senior citizens

As senior citizens deal with anxiety about the coronavirus, grocery store chains and other retailers have come up with a way to ease their fears: shopping times reserved exclusively for them.

Target, Whole Foods, Walmart and Dollar General, as well as supermarkets in Europe, began dedicating early morning shopping times for older customers this week. The theory is that allowing seniors to shop among smaller crowds could reduce their chances of acquiring the virus and give them first crack at buying hand sanitizer and other products that have been hard to find because of panic shopping.

The idea seems to have worked well in smaller shops but backfired in some larger stores, where big crowds made “social distancing” difficult.

“If you didn’t have coronavirus before you got there, you probably do now,” said Roger Glenn Miller, 82, after he showed up Thursday morning at a Stop & Shop grocery store in North Providence, Rhode Island, along with about 200 other seniors.

The Massachusetts-based chain, which is offering the special shopping time for seniors every day, said in a statement that it is asking its customers to consider staggering the days they shop “to ensure a less crowded environment. as well as for everyone to exercise caution and social distancing while shopping.”

Among other chains, Dollar General is reserving the first hour of shopping every day for seniors at its more than 16,000 stores.