Walmart requiring masks for customers

Kroger stores enact similar PPE policy, starting Wednesday

In perhaps the strongest statement yet by a major U.S. company about the importance of masks, Walmart said it would require that all of its customers wear face coverings starting next week.

The new rule from the nation’s largest retailer, with more than 5,000 stores nationwide, comes as health officials and scientists point to wearing masks as a way to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But Walmart’s new policy, which goes into effect Monday, also means the company is wading into the kind of culturally and politically divisive issue that it has a history of avoiding.

Already, companies such as Apple, Best Buy, Costco and Starbucks require that customers wear masks. But the ubiquity of Walmart stores in parts of the country where masks are unpopular make the giant retailer’s move particularly significant.

“We know some people have differing opinions on this topic,” Walmart said in a blog post Wednesday. “We also recognize the role we can play to help protect the health and well-being of the communities we serve by following the evolving guidance of health officials.”

Kroger, the parent company of King Soopers and City Market, announced on Twitter on Wednesday that it will also require customers at all its locations to wear face masks to protect against COVID-19. The policy will take effect Wednesday.

King Soopers said in a statement that it’s asking people who can’t wear a mask for medical reasons to consider wearing a face shield or covering or use the pickup or delivery service. Pickup is free during the pandemic. Small children won’t have to wear masks.

Shortly after the announcement, the National Retail Federation said it hoped Walmart’s move was a “tipping point in this public health debate” and urged all other retailers to enact the same requirement.

The trade group cited the dangers that the customers who do not wear masks posed to retail workers.

“Workers serving customers should not have to make a critical decision as to whether they should risk exposure to infection or lose their jobs because a minority of people refuse to wear masks in order to help stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus,” the

group said in a statement.

Many of the details of Walmart’s new policy are still being ironed out. The company has not described how it plans to handle a situation in which a customer refuses to wear a mask.

But in states where masks already are required, retail workers have faced heated and even violent confrontations when they remind customers to cover their faces. At a Walmart in Florida this week, a customer accused people who were wearing masks of being members of a “cult.” She was told to leave the store.

At another Walmart in Florida’s Palm Beach County, a man not wearing a mask pulled a gun on a man who was wearing a mask Sunday. The man who brandished the gun is wanted for assault.

Walmart said 65% of its stores, which include Walmarts and Sam’s Clubs, are in areas where there was some form of government mandate to wear masks.

At Sam’s Clubs, the company said it would provide complimentary masks to customers who did not have one. (Sam’s Club customers pay a membership fee to shop there.)

In Walmart stores — which are far more numerous — the company said it was creating a new job called a “health ambassador.” That person will be stationed next to the front door and will remind customers of the new rule.

“Ambassadors will receive special training to help make the process as smooth as possible for customers,” Walmart said, and “will work with those who show up at a store without a face covering to find a solution that works for everyone.”

The retailer did not identify what those possible solutions might be, nor did it say that it would provide masks to customers who did not have one.

Walmart’s enormous reach has reshaped communities nationwide, and in the past it has largely avoided publicly weighing in on any politicized debates. A notable exception came last year when it announced it would stop selling ammunition that can be used in military-style rifles and would discourage its customers from openly carrying guns in its stores. It also called on Congress to increase background checks and consider a new assault rifle ban. More recently, the retailer said it would no longer sell merchandise associated with Washington’s professional football team before it changed its name.

Retailers, including Walmart, have been criticized for not providing their employees with masks soon enough into the pandemic. But throughout the crisis, retailers had been receiving mixed messages from health and government officials about the effectiveness of masks.