Supermarkets do not impose a general masking requirement. They leave the choice to the customer, have agreed upon the supers sector-wide. Other large retail chains also see little in the cabinet’s ‘voluntary’ duty to mask.
Prime Minister Rutte announced new measures on Monday evening to counteract the second corona wave. For shops in large cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the cabinet advises customers to wear face masks. This is not mandatory, because such a measure can be legally challenged. Retailers are nevertheless being called upon to make this measure mandatory and to ban customers who do not want to wear a face mask.
The supermarkets, including market leaders Albert Heijn and Jumbo, do not agree. “If shops make face masks mandatory, it is expected to lead to a lot of extra discussion and even aggression at the door,” says a spokesperson for industry association CBL. “We want to protect the staff from that.” Employees can also decide for themselves whether they wear a cap.
The supermarkets do urge customers to follow the advice to wear a mouth mask in shops in the big cities. The supers will also monitor compliance with other corona measures more strictly, such as keeping their distance and a maximum number of customers in the store.
The latter is done according to the same rule that also applied this spring: one customer per 10 square meters of shop floor. “At busy times, a supermarket employee will be at the door more often to make the door policy more visible and to make customers aware of the applicable rules.”
The sector has not yet decided on the two ‘elderly hours’ per day that the cabinet wants to introduce. The CBL first wants to discuss this with the cabinet and the Anbo elderly association. Earlier tests with early morning hours for elderly people soon generated little enthusiasm. Anbo was also not in favor of it.
Bijenkorf does
Hema also does not make mouth masks mandatory, but does recommend wearing it to customers in the four major cities. The department store wants to avoid unfair discussions about whether or not to wear a cap. De Bijenkorf makes masks compulsory in, among other things, the Amsterdam location. Interestingly enough, that regulation does not apply to the Amstelveen location, which falls under the same Safety Region.
Retail chains Blokker, Intertoys and Big Bazar decide per location whether customers should wear a face mask. “We look at this per city according to the recommendations that have now been made by the cabinet,” says Michiel Witteveen of parent company Mirage Retail. “In any case, we ensure that all our staff are provided with textile masks,” says Witteveen. 8000 people work at the Mirage chains.
The regulation that there must be supervision at the door of compliance with corona rules is also followed. “We have already been putting people at the door for a while in March. I feel sorry for our staff. It’s brave to be in the store at this time. It doesn’t get any easier. ”
