Yes, I know that the decision to put pretty much all of the health and beauty products in the special secured area is what's actually to blame here, but it's still pretty funny to see this! Since my mid-remodel visit, they added a (very Lifestyle v3-like) plaque to aisle 4 to designate the "Everyday Essentials" section, and (strangely) moved the aisle markers for the walled-off section to align with the rest instead of being next to the actual aisles, meaning the one for aisle 5 (and presumably also aisle 3) is hanging right above the shelving that prevents you from getting to the actual aisle.
Those aisle markers aren't too Albertsons-like since it says pain relief instead of analgesics!
ReplyDeleteNow, that said, I might need some analgesics if our supermarkets ever tried something like that 'Everyday Essentials' aisle. I just don't understand how that works. Do they have a manned register at the end of the aisle with someone getting items that are locked up? Is the register person the one doing the unlocking? Can someone pay for stuff from other aisles in that aisle?
All of this sounds like an unpleasant experience, one made even more unpleasant if that aisle is as understaffed as the Safeways in your area generally seem to be! I know during that one trip I made to the Walmart locked up aisle, there wasn't anyone working the register there and there wasn't anyone available to unlock anything. This was during the middle of the day during a prime shopping time. It just seemed like it would be impossible to even buy those items from a store like that.
On another note, it still seems strange to me to see fireworks being sold inside a supermarket! We certainly don't have that around Houston (it is illegal to buy fireworks inside the city limits anyway, but even the stores in areas where it is legal don't have them).
Ha!
DeleteI have a better picture coming up Tuesday, but unlike at the stores you're describing, the products in the "essentials" section aren't locked up themselves -- I guess the idea is that the dedicated checkout and security presence is enough to deter theft without needing to lock everything up. I assume the idea is that you would go there once you already have everything else and pay for everything at the dedicated checkout, but I can't say for sure. I'm guessing that's the one checkout that's open during slower times (unlike my store, most Safeways still do have more than one open most of the time), though there is a gate to close the area off, so maybe you just can't buy stuff from there when the store is short on staff -- I'm not really sure.
Those aren't "real" fireworks (which are illegal in Seattle and most of the state anyway), just little poppers/sparklers/etc. When I visited Portland around the 4th of July in 2019, I was quite surprised to see that they had "real" fireworks for sale inside the stores there -- I've never seen anything more than this indoors in Washington!