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Limits on grocery shoppers per family on horizon

Maui County Mayor Michael Victorino is calling for grocery stores and pharmacies to limit the number of family members allowed in at one time and to shift to pickup and delivery, another step aimed at reducing public outings and potential exposure to COVID-19.

The mayor said during a news conference Tuesday that he was establishing a few new rules as cases continued to rise statewide.

“We don’t see a real leveling off, so we’re still in need of maybe some stricter guidelines and enforcement,” Victorino said.

The emergency rules already in place call for people to stay at home and work from home and for nonessential businesses to close.

Victorino said the new rules will include asking all essential retail operations, including grocery stores, pharmacies and others, to allow no more than two members of one household in the store at one time. He also urged them to mark the floors or install some sort of designation to encourage social distancing.

And, he asked grocery stores to start offering pickup and delivery service if possible so people can call in their orders, swing by the store for their groceries and go home.

“We really need to look at that as being another option for keeping social distancing and people from roaming around freely in the store,” Victorino said.

Effective dates for the two-shoppers-per-household limit will be announced soon, he added.

If people do not comply with the rules, the county may have to “up the ante again,” Victorino said.

The Maui Police Department also plans to start setting up roving checkpoints; as of Tuesday the department had issued 114 citations and made six arrests over the past week.

* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.

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