Store staff become guardians of law
NEW YORK — Sandy Jensen’s customer service job at a Sam’s Club retail warehouse in Fullerton, California, normally involves checking members’ ID cards at the door and answering questions. But the coronavirus has turned her into a kind of a store sheriff.
Now she must confront shoppers who aren’t wearing masks, enforce social-distancing measures such as one-way aisles and limit the number of people allowed inside. The efforts sometimes provoke testy customers.
“They are behaving worse now,” Jensen said. “Everybody is on edge. I have hostile members in my face.”
Her frustration is shared by store workers across the U.S., who are suddenly being asked to enforce the rules that govern shopping during the pandemic, a role for which most of them have received little or no training. The burden is likely to become greater as more businesses in nearly a dozen states start to reopen.
Even if a security guard is posted at the store, employees complain they are often left to stand up to defiant shoppers.
“I think that people are pushing back because their freedoms are being controlled,” said Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.3 million members including grocery workers. “Members don’t feel comfortable trying to corral the customer. Management will take the customer side.”
Store tensions recently resulted in violence in at least two states. A Michigan security officer was shot dead last week after telling a customer to wear a mask at a Family Dollar store. On Wednesday, two McDonald’s employees in Oklahoma City were shot by a customer who was angry that the restaurant’s dining area was closed, police said.
At a southern California grocery store called Vons, a customer showed up in what looked like a Ku Klux Klan hood. He ignored requests from workers to remove it until he got to the register, according to the supermarket.
Masks are required in some states and communities. Some major retailers, including Costco Wholesale Club, have made masks mandatory regardless of government policies. But even at stores that post signs about mask recommendations, workers often have to approach unmasked visitors.
Jeff Reid, who works at the meat counter at a Giant store in Silver Spring, Maryland, which mandates masks, said the greeter at his store is the one confronting shoppers, not the security guard posted outside.
“We are going on the front lines on a daily basis. If it’s against the law without your mask, why are you having cashiers and teenagers trying to enforce this when this is the law?” asked Reid, who often has to reprimand customers to keep two metres apart.
The pandemic duties are the latest example of how some workers are being asked to police retail space. Last year, retailers including CVS, Walgreens and Walmart asked that customers refrain from openly carrying guns in stores even where state laws allow it. Stores did not outright prohibit guns because they did not want workers to have to enforce a ban. But how workers should respond to weapon-carrying customers remains fuzzy.