This is plain dumb and clearly comes from politicians who have no clue of how retail works! https://twitter.com/hcpeterson/status/1248658499720089600

For a start, in terms of products where does non-essential begin and end? It’s little more than a guessing game. You could say homewares is non-essential, but if your reading lamp breaks maybe a new lamp is important.

Second, retailers like Target and Walmart have enough to deal with already. Making them tape off bits of their stores and revise deliveries and staffing schedules is just unnecessarily adding to the burden.

Third, it’s kind of illogical if you can still place online non-essential orders to collect from store. There will now be more people flocking around the collection area. That’s not such a good thing when distance is important.

Third, on that matter of distance, sealing off bits of the store just makes it more cramped. And having to calculate the new footage for capacity restrictions is annoying. Yet more work for retailers.

Fourth, sealing off some aisles and not others is just a big mess. It will concentrate people into the aisles that remain open - again encouraging crowing. And it makes navigating the store quite hard.

Fifth, the stupid suggestion that stock be removed from the floor is idiocy. Clearly mentioned by someone who has never worked in retail. Most retailers won’t have the backroom space to remove all stock. And that warehouse space is desperately needed for essential goods anyway.

Sixth, this will likely encourage some people to travel more. Vermonters will simply go over to New Hampshire if they need something - just like they already do to avoid VT’s sales tax (NH has zero sales tax). Traveling is not a good thing right now.

Seventh, telling retailers that are open and facing increased costs that they can’t sell most non-food is going to mean a massive hit to margins. That matters because those margins are supporting staff pay increases. Maybe fewer staff are needed in stores, so more layoffs.

Eighth, I’d like to see crystal clear evidence that this decision categorically prevents the spread of the virus. I’ve looked and cannot find any. As such, it’s just a playing to the gallery move - doing something for the sake of doing something.

The whole thing has no logic to it. It just creates complications and increases challenges for everyone. It’s a typical example of governors meddling in things that are best left alone.

A lot has already been done to restrict people’s lives. It is very unwelcome but everyone understands that such temporary measures are needed. But enough is enough.

Here’s a comment from a shopper. It doesn’t make any sense, she says. But then a lot of politicians don’t have much common sense!