‘Social shoppers’ frustrate Canadian grocery store staff

Barreda noted that people are far too close to each other while shopping and acting as if the store was a bar.

“Everybody wants to look over each other's shoulder and look at produce or peek at the meats and we have to go, like, 'Sorry, folks, remember six feet for safety,'” Barreda said.

Canadians have been advised by health officials and politicians, not to use their time at the grocery store as a time to socialize. Employees at the stores are asking customers to shop alone and be as efficient as possible. Limiting shopping outings to once per week also helps.

Dino Virgona, the owner of Fiesta Farms—a grocery store in Toronto—noted that his customers are mostly respectful though too many people are continuing to shop in groups.

"If somebody's coming with their spouse, or one of their kids or something, 'It's OK today,' we would tell them, 'But next time, if you could please shop solo,'" he said

Safety measures such as installing Plexiglass in front of cashiers and sanitizing carts have been implemented by many grocery stores.

While customers are respectful for the most part, reports of customers verbally abusing staff members have started to increase.

Grocery store employees say customers have cursed and yelled at them and accused them of overreacting when they asked customers to practice social distancing.

The union representing the grocery store workers says that these incidents should be reported and should not be tolerated.

Anouk Collet, the executive assistant to the national president of the United Food and Commercial workers union also commented on the problem.

She said, “I know in retail very often we say, '[The] customer is No. 1. They come first.' But I don't think, in this case, it's true.”