Austintown resident Dawn Perez looks through the remnants of the bread aisle at Rulli Bros. in Austintown Friday afternoon. Perez said she has done some precautionary shopping, but only because necessities she’ll need in the next few days will be sold out.
Staff photo / Ashley Fox
After work Friday, Dawn Perez of Austintown looked around Rulli Bros. for a few items to get her through the weekend.
“I’m just trying to get something — before I come to the store to get something last-minute and it’s not here,” she said, laughing.
Perez grabbed bread, milk and lunchmeat — “so that way if we need something, we already have it, hopefully.” She’s also been using websites for some items, such as cat food, she said.
Perez said in many instances, it seems as though stores have been overwhelmed with customers — so much so that the staff doesn’t seem to have a chance to restock shelves.
WHOLESALERS OUT
Customers surging to retail pharmacies want disinfectant items, over-the-counter medicine and toiletries.
“It’s good to be prepared, obviously. I think to go out and buy like carloads of toilet paper is kind of maybe going to be a little obsessive,” Bruce Dilullo, a Girard pharmacist, said. “You’ve got to kind of not overdo it so other people have a chance of getting things.”
Dilullo said the “big thing” that pharmacies can’t keep on their shelves is hand sanitizer.
“The key issue is the wholesalers are out of it, too,” Dilullo said. “Our hands are tied; we’re trying to get it in.”
People are also buying up alcohol and aloe vera to make their own hand sanitizers — which Dilullo said is actually effective when it’s done correctly.
Franklin Pharmacy in Warren has been fighting to keep shelves stocked, with items such as Lysol and Clorox brand wipes, gloves, bleach and cold medicine flying off the shelves, according to NaQuanya Mays, who handles ordering merchandise at the store.
“We’ve actually had to put a limit on things,” Mays said, noting customers are limited to two of each item per person. She said some other stores are doing the same.
She said the store orders merchandise from two manufacturers, and both have items on back order — including the coveted hand sanitizer and masks. The store has been sold out of masks for weeks.
COMPARISONS
As Perez walked the store aisles, so did Michael Rulli, director of operations for the family-owned stores — and also a Republican state senator from Salem.
He said Friday he was”bouncing between” the Austintown location and Boardman store. “It’s like a snow event,” Rulli said.
“I think the best comparison is the Y2K event” when people stockpiled items, preparing for a computer crash that never did happen on New Year’s Eve 1999.
Some consumers began trickling into stores about three weeks ago, Rulli said, but once Gov. Mike DeWine spoke earlier this week, announcing schools would close for three weeks, the situation seemed to “explode.”
“It was the mechanism that triggered everything,” he said.
The list of items flying off the shelves includes bottled water being purchased at “an incredible rate,” toilet paper, then paper towels, hand soap, bleach wipes and other sanitizing items, Rulli said.
A lot of staples are selling quickly, Rulli noted, such as milk, eggs, meat and bread.
An official of Sparkle Markets in Trumbull County said the shopping frenzy will pass. “People want to be prepared,” he said, adding that folks are buying food to last for three to four days, as well as paper products and cleaning supplies.
He also said not to panic if a store doesn’t have what you want or need. As soon as the staff is able, he said, the shelves will be restocked. “Stores are going to do the best they can,” he said, adding that supplies are in warehouses and “it will catch up.”
Rulli said that while the stores are busy, he has noticed that shoppers are being patient and “everyone’s been more docile and more loving.”
As an extra safety measure, cashiers began wearing gloves, and change them several times per hour, Rulli said.
The only time in history Rulli can think of such actions, when people stocked up and later rationed, is World War II.
“That’s the only thing I can think of in history that happened like that,” he said.
Regardless, the grocery industry will be a sort of staple, as people need essentials and pharmaceuticals.
“We have to hold the line,” Rulli said.
SOLD OUT
Shopper Linda Thumm said she went to Sam’s Club, Bath and Body Works and Target looking for hand sanitizer to use in Thumm’s Bike and Clock shop in Warren before she went to Franklin Pharmacy and settled for Clorox brand wipes.
She said at Target, shelves where disinfectants and toilet paper used to be were bare. The store had posted a note that read, “Due to high demand and to support all our customers, we will be limiting the quantities of disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizers, hand and face wipes, toilet paper and 24 packs of bottled water to four per customer.”
At Berry’s Natural Health Market and Pharmacy in Austintown, shelves are stripped of similar items as well as toilet paper and peroxide, according to pharmacist Heidi Walter.
She said the store hasn’t started limiting customer purchases, but it is encouraging customers to stay calm.
“Just don’t panic. We’re trying not to panic,” Walter said.
Berry’s part-owner Rob Berry said the health store is also low on popular immune-system boosters such as elderberry and certain teas and supplements.
“We’ve definitely been busier than normal,” Berry said, adding business would likely slow down if people started staying in their homes to avoid virus spread.
