RAONOKE, Va. – Starting Saturday, Walmart will begin limiting how many people can be inside its stores.
Stores will now allow no more than five customers for each 1,000 square feet at a given time, roughly 20 percent of a store’s capacity. For clarity, we reached out to Walmart’s corporate offices and learned that these restriction’s are based upon the building’s size.
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Here are the square footage of some area Walmarts and what their people limits will be:
- Christiansburg - 200,004 square feet - 1,000 customers allowed in the store at a time
- Roanoke - Bonsack - 183,960 square feet - 919.8 customers allowed in the store at at time
- Roanoke - Clearbrook - 187,130 square feet - 935.65 customers allowed in the store at a time
- Roanoke - Neighborhood Market (Dale Avenue) - 42,164 square feet - 210 customers allowed in the store at a time
- Roanoke - Valley View - 206,978 square feet - 1,034.89 customers allowed in the store at a time
- Salem - 187,074 square feet - 935.37 customers allowed in the store at a time
The Covington Police Department said the Walmart on Thacker Ave will be limited to 350 at a time in the store.
To manage this restriction, the associates at a store will mark a queue at a single-entry door (in most cases the grocery entrance) and direct arriving customers there, where they will be admitted one-by-one and counted. Associates and signage will remind customers of the importance of social distancing while they’re waiting to enter a store – especially before it opens in the morning.
Once a store reaches its capacity, customers will be admitted inside on a “1-out-1-in” basis.
Once inside a many stores, patrons will be limited to one-way movement to help customers avoid coming into close contact with each other.