GREENFIELD — While the NCAA has canceled the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments due to the worldwide pandemic, a very different type of march madness has been taking place at area stores.
Consumers have swamped local businesses to stock up on supplies as COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, continues to spread and keep the world on edge. Some retailers are scrambling to keep certain items on shelves as a degree of panic sets in.
Megan Beaulieu, manager of the Dollar General at 10 Colrain Road in the Big Y plaza, said people have flocked into the store to buy hand sanitizers, rubbing alcohol, toilet paper, paper towels, sanitizing wipes, face masks and rubber gloves.
She said the store ran out of toilet paper Wednesday night and restocked it Thursday. She said late Thursday morning that she had been at the store since 4 a.m.
There was a collection of storage bins near the cash registers and Beaulieu said many people were rummaging through them looking for hand sanitizer, forcing Beaulieu to post a sign telling customers they would be ordered to leave the store if anyone else tried it. She said she has not seen a frenzy like this in her retail career, which began in 2011. She has been with Dollar General for eight months.
Meanwhile, the pickings were getting slimmer and slimmer in Big Y’s paper products aisle on Thursday.
“What comes in every day pretty much sells out. If it comes in, it sells,” said Keith Desroches, who has been an assistant store manager for 10 years. “It’s like a major snowstorm’s coming, if I had to equate it to anything. There’s a certain psychology factor — people like to nest and have things.”
He said Big Y has also sold many cases of bottled water.
Customer Tegan Moran, who said she is a registered nurse with the Greenfield School Department and at Charlene Manor Extended Care, was on her typical weekly shopping trip and picked up a 12-pack of toilet paper, which she said she planned to split with her 91-year-old grandmother, who she had urged to stay home. Moran marveled at the amount of bare space down the paper products aisle. She said there was a similar scene at BJ’s Wholesale Club at 42 Colrain Road.
“It’s like Black Friday for toilet paper,” Moran said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She also said the nursing home and the school district seem to be taking all necessary precautions.
Others were less concerned.
“I’m tired of hearing the words ‘corona’ and ‘virus,’” said Wade Williams, who lives in Warwick. “I think it’s getting a little blown out of proportion.”
Williams is a student at Fitchburg State University, and is home for spring break a little longer than expected. Last week, a few days into what would have been a one-week break, he said, an email was sent to students telling them that break had been extended an extra week, and that they should be prepared for it to last up to three weeks longer.
“It kind of sucks,” he said.
At The People’s Pint, customers seem nervous and uncertain, said General Manager Josh Breitner. But they don’t seem to be drinking any more than usual, he said.
“Everybody’s got some theory about what’s going to happen next,” Breitner said. “People are kind of freaked out. But I think everything is ‘wait and see’ at this point.”
He mentioned that business may be a bit slower this week than usual, but added that this is a slow time of year anyway.
“Am I afraid of it?” said Nicholas Day, who lives in Deerfield. “No.”
But he mentioned that there is a lot of seemingly conflicting information circulating on the coronavirus.
“We have a group of people that are saying it’s nothing. But at the same time, we’ve now canceled all European travel,” he said.
At least some are stocking up on supplies. Kurt Oster, who lives in Greenfield, said he has started buying extra amounts of food he likes.
“I’m afraid of the prices going up,” Oster said. “I’ve noticed how it’s affecting the stock market. I know it probably won’t hit us right away, but it might trickle down pretty soon, eventually. If people can’t work, then there are supply runs. … It wrecks the whole system.”