Kroger seems to be using the pair of Capitol Hill QFCs to test
just how obnoxious their anti-shoplifting measures can be before driving away business -- they've already had to roll back
some of them, but for a while it seemed like there were new headlines every few months about frustrated shoppers. This store now has a set of plexiglass walls with entry-only gates on either side of the entrance space, with the exit from the checkout counters straight ahead
where the pumpkins were in this image; I wasn't comfortable getting better pictures around here due to the bored security guards hanging around, but it does appear that this is the toned-down version of the much-hated original setup shown in the first link. (And yes, I did have to blur myself out of the giant security monitor -- the one downside to having a higher-quality camera!)
Wow, I didn't know QFC was (is?) locking down ice cream. That seems like a pretty common grocery store item and a typically understaffed Kroger would have a hard time keeping up with demand to unlock the ice cream case. I wonder if the decision had anything to do with the case a few years ago in Texas where a teenager licked Blue Bell ice cream and then put the carton back in the freezer.
ReplyDeleteEven many of the suburban Krogers here in Houston have those automated gates at the entrances...or at least the entrances which don't funnel into the self-checkout area. At least it is better than the set up my local Fiesta Mart has where the gates are actually manual and you have to push open the gate to walk through it or push a cart through the gate!
I'm really not sure what the deal was with the whole ice cream lockdown thing! I think Kroger PR eventually tried to claim it was some sort of misunderstanding, but no one really believed that given their history with those two stores.
DeleteInteresting -- around here, the only chain that uses them regularly is Walmart, and even they don't have them in most of their stores! Fred Meyer seems to have used them in some stores before they were bought out, but I don't believe they have them in any of their stores currently. Those manual gates sound extra annoying, and also rather useless since it can't possibly be all that difficult to pull them open from the inside!