Local grocery and retail stores are adjusting to the City of Orillia’s tightened COVID-19 restrictions.
On Saturday, retailers that are 20,000 square feet or larger were forced to restrict their capacity to just 50 percent of their typical capacity inside at a time.
Food Basics store manager Dan Hartley said his customers expressed frustration with the new city bylaw over the weekend. Now, only 74 shoppers are permitted to enter the grocery store at a time.
“People didn’t like it. I had a lot of people who were upset waiting outside, and I had a lot of angry customers wondering why the limit is so low,” Hartley said.
Hartley takes issue with the new bylaw as Food Basics’ competitors who reside just outside of Orillia, such as Jason’s No Frills, don’t have to play by the same rules.
“I would think that the top medical people in Ontario would have a pretty good grasp on things, and I don’t think Orillia needed to get involved in it,” he said.
Hartley says he and the staff at Food Basics are working hard to keep the store running as efficiently as possible, and they are trying to provide a positive shopping experience for their customers. However, to be successful, it’s going to take a community effort, Hartley says.
“We ask customers to please remember that there is no need to panic buy. All you are doing is taking that product away from your neighbour until we can get it back in. Please only buy what you need,” he said.
Despite agitated shoppers over the weekend, customers polled by OrilliaMatters on Monday afternoon were mostly positive about the change.
“I think it’s better. It’s for our protection, and if we all just follow these new restrictions, hopefully it will allow us to get back to normal sooner,” said Domenica Dominelli.
“With Christmas in just a few days, and people coming here in lockdown zones, they had to do something.”
Over at Zehrs, the new city bylaw had the store running at a 138-person capacity, which was only down from the 150-person capacity they had been operating at before.
Manager Randy Rutledge says the store wasn’t as busy as they expected during the last weekend before Christmas.
“That might be because more people were out in the other stores trying to get their presents and leaving their groceries for later,” Rutledge explained.
“We had lineups a few times, but nothing major. Today we’ve had some major lineups, which leads me to believe that a lot of people have left their grocery shopping until the last minute.”
On Monday, Zehrs had about 40 customers waiting in line during peak shopping hours.
To help maintain a positive shopping experience, Zehrs has brought in security to help control lineups. They also have staff greeting customers and offering hand sanitizer. However, Rutledge says the only way to keep the store running efficiently is if they have help from the community.
“The best way for the customer to help themselves is to only send in one person per household to shop. If we have a family of four that shows up, they are eating up three spots that could be used for other families to get their shopping done,” Rutledge explained.
“I don’t think people necessarily think of that, and I get some people have young kids and don’t have a choice, but it would be helpful if everyone could play a part in limiting the lineups.”
When it comes to competitor stores from beyond city boundaries operating without capacity limits put in place by their municipal councils, Rutledge says he doesn’t have a problem with it, as he expects every store in the local community to set their own capacity limits and set their own safety protocols, prioritizing keeping their staff and customers safe.
“To be quite honest, we had our own limits in place already, and I expect those other businesses will be doing the same kinds of practices to keep their customers and staff safe,” Rutledge said.
Rutledge adds that the capacity restrictions will actually help local retailers like Zehrs deal with the typical holiday rush that leaves employees exhausted.
“Having the limit will actually make it the easiest Christmas of all, in the sense that we won’t have the crazy capacities that we normally have; it will be a little more relaxed,” he said.
So far Rutledge says most of the customers at Zehrs have been understanding and on board with the new city bylaw.
“There is one in every ten I would say who doesn’t understand the new regulations or has a problem with them, but for the most part our customers have been very understanding,” he said.
One of those understanding shoppers is Brandon Clemens, who told OrilliaMatters Monday afternoon that the new city bylaw gives him confidence that he is safe while shopping at retailers like Zehrs.
“I like the new restrictions for sure. It feels safer when there isn’t like 300 people in here,” Clemens said.
“It gives the store some time to sanitize the carts, and make sure the proper procedures are being followed.”
Over at Home Hardware, store co-owner Chris Locke says his staff and most of his customers have no issue with the new city bylaw.
“It’s fine with us, we are kind of heading into our slowest time of the year anyway, so it wasn’t an issue,” Locke said of the post-Christmas time.
Over the weekend, Home Hardware had staff at the entrance doors making sure the capacity limits were not exceeding the new mandate, and it was rare that the store was forced to stop a customer and ask them to wait outside.
“I didn’t hear any negative commentary at all over the weekend. I think when you stop customers at the door they understand why; we’ve had very few issues with negative feedback from customers,” Locke said.
While the capacity limits and COVID-19 restrictions are not ideal for any retailer, Locke says he and the Home Hardware staff are on board with the City of Orillia and are willing to do whatever it takes to keep staff and customers safe.
“I support the city’s decision fully. Regardless of what the city or province has mandated, we’ve always done our best to go the extra mile to make sure everyone in our store is keeping safe,” Locke said.
“These new regulations just go along with what we’ve been trying to do as we navigate through this year of COVID.”
One of Home Hardware’s competitors, Canadian Tire, is located just outside of Orillia in Severn Township, meaning they don’t have to follow the City of Orillia’s new retail capacity bylaw, however, Locke and the Home Hardware staff are not too concerned with any business, other than their own.
“We’ve been functioning this whole year while doing what’s best for our own staff and own customers, we are not worrying too much about what other folks are doing,” Locke said.
“We’ve been busy, we’ve had a good year, and we consider ourselves incredibly lucky considering this has hit other industries incredibly harder than it has ours.”
Orillia Walmart, Orillia Costco, and Orillia Giant Tiger management declined to comment for this story.
