Alie speaks; hazards of shopping

Allie Speaks,

May 2014

In my last column I spoke about the difficulties of shopping in Hantsport.  However, Hantsport is not the only community that presents challenges to people with mobility issues.

Recently, I was in the newly renovated Canadian Tire store.  You would think it would be a great place to shop because it was just renovated.  I was surprised to find that it was quite difficult to get around because there are huge columns in the aisles.  Sometimes you get all the way to the end of an aisle and find your way blocked and then you have to turn around and go back where you started.  Who thought of that idea?  I guess it gives customers the opportunity to shop the same aisle twice.

Another obstacle I have encountered was in the Sobey’s store in Windsor.  The checkout counters all have card readers that are attached so high up that a person in a wheelchair cannot pay by a card without telling someone else to enter their PIN number.  This I will not do.  So Sobey’s has lost my business.  When I mentioned this to the cashier she told me that no one else had complained.   That wasn’t my point.  I did not want a lot of people to complain.  I just wanted to use my own card in the normal way that everyone does.  This situation has not been fixed yet to my knowledge.

I always use a wheelchair when I shop so I expect that shopping will not always be simple or easy.  I always have challenges wherever I go but sometimes I find the obstacles hard to understand when the solution seems to be so simple.  When you renovate a store don’t put columns in the aisles.  When you have card readers make them flexible enough for everyone to use.  That is just good business!

Alison McQueen