Shoppers seek distancing guidelines
BY ROSE ADAMS
As shoppers fl ock to grocery
stores and pharmacies
during the COVID-19 pandemic,
locals have complained
that crowded lines and aisles
help spread the virus —
prompting one Kings County
lawmaker to call for citywide
social distancing guidelines
for essential businesses.
“I’ve been contacted by a
number of constituents concerned
about social distancing
in pharmacies and grocery
stores,” said Coney Island
Councilman Mark Treyger.
“The mayor really has a responsibility
to issue guidance
about what social distancing
looks like.”
Both the city and state have
instituted numerous measures
to slow the spread of the novel
coronavirus, such as closing
schools, shuttering playgrounds,
and issuing fi nes to
people who cluster in public —
but many grocery stores and
pharmacies have been forced
to devise their own social distancing
policies to mitigate
the infl ux of customers.
One employee at a Cobble
Hill supermarket said that
she struggles to enforce her
store’s social distancing rules
because of the sharp rise in
customers.
COURIER L 6 IFE, APRIL 10-16, 2020
“We can’t be on top of everybody,”
said Odalys Martinez,
a cashier at Key Food on
Atlantic Avenue. “People don’t
like when you tell them what
to do.”
Universal social distancing
guidelines would help ensure
that all businesses are following
best practices, and could
convince customers to follow
their rules, said Martinez.
“It’d be very helpful,” she
said. “It keeps everyone safe.”
An employee at Trader
Joe’s in Cobble Hill echoed
Martinez’s concerns, saying
that shoppers tended to cluster
up in an effort to get their
hands on much-needed supplies.
“Customers as a whole
don’t social distance themselves,”
said a worker who declined
to give his name. “They
pull up in one aisle.”
To help employees enforce
social distancing measures,
Treyger wrote a letter to the
Mayor on March 30 demanding
that the city come up with
social distancing guidelines
for stores, and produce multilingual
signage for businesses
to post.
“It is crucial that grocery
stores and pharmacies adhere
to social distancing by limiting
the number of customers
allowed in facilities at one
time,” Treyger wrote.
City Hall spokeswoman
Laura Feyer claimed the mayor’s
Administration has been
working with grocery industry
leaders to implement social
distancing measures and
has already produced 50,000
multilingual signs for stores
around the city — but their individualized
approach leaves
many business owners high
and dry, said Treyger.
“We need a uniform policy,”
he wrote in his letter.
Shoppers browse in a supermarket while wearing masks to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant
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Making Sense of the Census
By Julie Menin, Director of NYC
Census 2020 AND Kristina Newman-
Scott, President of BRIC.
With COVID-19 at the top of everyone’s
minds, it’s important to take a
moment to appreciate and thank the
workers that are keeping our city going.
From our doctors, nurses and
health officials, to bus drivers and
conductors, to the essential workers
keeping our city running, we’re relying
on our public services more and
more every day.
And now, they’re counting on us.
Because to keep our public services
fully funded and working for the
next decade, we need to make sure all
of us are counted in the 2020 Census.
This is why NYC Census 2020 and
BRIC partnered to create a new PSA
demonstrating why doing the census
is one of the most important ways to
support our communities in these difficult
times.
With the coronavirus introducing
new challenges to our communities,
the census could not be more important.
Now more than ever, we are seeing
Our
Heroes
Are
Counting
On Us
how much we all rely on our public
services: our hospitals, healthcare,
roads and bridges, transit, schools
and countless other programs.
The census is also vital because
census data is being used to determine
our responses to crises. The
communities hit hardest by COVID-19
are some of the most historically undercounted
in the census. If New York
City does not have a complete count, it
hurts the funding, political representation,
and data needed to serve these
communities.
Luckily, since the census is available
online, over the phone, and by
mail, you can get counted on your
own from home. In other words, you
can still fight for social justice while
social distancing.
“Making Sense of the Census” is a
weekly column from Julie Menin, Director
of NYC Census 2020. Every week
we will be publishing pieces from Julie
and guest authors laying out the facts
and answering tough questions about
this year’s census. Fill out the census
now at my2020census.gov.
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