After workers catch coronavirus, Miami Beach supermarkets ordered to limit capacity
Supermarkets, pharmacies and other “essential businesses” in Miami Beach will be required to limit their capacity by half, keep employees and customers six feet from each other at all times, and provide disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizers at its stores, according to a new emergency order announced by the city Tuesday.
The new measures, which also order grocers to close salad bars and self-service food stations, go into effect Wednesday. The announcement comes after employees at Publix and Trader Joe’s stores in Miami Beach tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.
“There’s no question that people working at the stores and some customers are going to have the virus,” said Mayor Dan Gelber. “So that’s why the countermeasures have to be in place and adhered to.”
The city also announced a new order Tuesday banning religious gatherings. The city had already prohibited any religious gatherings of 10 or more people. The Archdiocese of Miami moved to suspend all mass services on March 18. Synagogues have also suspended services, but some private Jewish gatherings — called minyans — have continued, Gelber said.
“Many rabbis have reached out expressing great concern that minyans are still happening informally or at homes or outside,” the mayor said in a videotaped address Monday. “As difficult as this may seem to comply with, we must. It is a threat — a grave threat — to sponsor gatherings, even to pray.”
Under the essential-business order, stores must “provide disinfecting wipes at points of entrance, cash registers, and/or other appropriate locations, subject to availability of supplies, for customers to disinfect carts, shopping baskets, or point of sale terminals. In the alternative, essential retail and commercial businesses shall designate staff responsible for disinfecting carts, shopping baskets, point of sale terminals, and other areas as frequently as possible.”
Gelber proposed the orders to City Manager Jimmy Morales, who wields unilateral decision-making powers during emergency periods, after visiting several supermarkets and pharmacies in Miami Beach over the weekend. He was concerned by what he saw: packed stores, a lack of disinfecting products and a lack of federal guidelines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not issued guidance to essential businesses about what best practices to follow.
With almost every aspect of commerce and recreation shut down by local governments, supermarkets are bustling with activity at all hours of the day. At Trader Joe’s, which already limits how many customers can enter their stores, customers frequently experience long wait times as queues run along the outside of supermarkets.
In a pointed message Monday, delivered via video, Gelber singled out Publix and Walgreens — and praised Trader Joe’s.
“It amazed me that there seems to be no direction to essential businesses like supermarkets and pharmacies, where everybody is going,” he told the Miami Herald. “People can’t act like these places are COVID-free zones. They really have got to be very careful there. We’re going to start sending police to see how they’re complying.”
This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 6:39 PM.
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