TUCSON, Ariz. -- Fry's Food Stores is making a change in response to the coronavirus that will affect when you can shop.
Starting Monday store hours will be from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Seven days a week.
Fry's stores are closing two hours earlier, every day, so employees can have time to restock shelves.
Certainly something that has caught some customers, like Lauri Helberg, by surprise.
“When I turned down the aisle and there was nothing there, I thought I was in a movie,” said Helberg.
She is one of many shoppers who couldn’t believe her eyes.
“I thought someone was videoing my response to seeing an empty shelf,” she added.
Helberg says lately she dreads going shopping.
“It’s packed. There are lines and lines of cars and lines of people, and people are hoarding stuff,” she told KGUN9.
However now, most stores are limiting the amount of items you can check out. Doug Loftus noticed it for the first time today.
“I went to get some milk and...limited to two half gallons. They have no eggs. No paper goods, wipes. The baby food aisle is pretty depleted. There’s no milk. Unless the trucks come, bring new supplies, they’re not going to have anything at all,” he said.
Helberg says she isn;t quite sure what people will do with all the items they are purchasing,or when they will even use them.
This pandemonium shopping comes after three women in Australia got into a brawl over toilet paper.
Meantime, here in Tucson, shoppers say they have noticed a different change of pace.
“They’re walking a little faster. They have that sense of urgency,” said Loftus.
Now Helberg and her granddaughter try to avoid the frantic shopping scene as much as they can.
They’re prefered shopping times: late at night and early in the morning.
As shoppers find their new groove, Helberg asks them to include one thing in their routine.
“I want people to just calm down. Just calm down!” she said.
There is one exception to this time change.
KGUN9 spoke to the managers at the Frys on Speedway and Pantano.
The new hours will be enforced starting Monday, March 16.
