Costco recently made a major change to their store policies: after two years of special shopping hours for seniors, health care workers, and first responders, they’ve switched back to normal hours. This change went into effect on April 18.
Costco‘s special shopping hours were originally put in place as part of safety measures they instated at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020. Many other stores offered similar policies in order to keep at-risk groups protected from the virus.
Although the member-only retailer initially announced that they would reduce their special shopping hours in July 2020, they stuck with their original policy when cases quickly began to rise again.
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The first real change to this policy took place in July 2021, when Costco announced that they would be restricting their special shopping hours to only 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays rather than throughout the entire week.
Now, since COVID cases and hospitalizations are quickly dipping across the United States at a steady rate, the store has announced on their website that they "will no longer be offering special shopping hours."
And shoppers are not happy about it. "SHAME ON COSTCO," one person tweeted. "You are RISKING SENIOR LIVES by taking the SENIOR HOURS AWAY."
The tweeter also noted that the store "made millions" off of this policy. "Pure greed," they wrote.
One person made a plea for the retailer to keep the senior hours: "Please reinstate your senior hours," they wrote. "We are not done with this pandemic yet. Also a crowd assembled in front of Costco today never told about the change. Thirty plus people. These are your loyal communities stand with them and open at 9 or require masks." Masks sound like they could be a decent compromise!
Another unhappy shopper wrote, "Hey Costco! Very disappointed that you completely stopped Senior hours. Was twice a week really too much for you?"
However, Costco has made no further announcements on the subject, so it seems the return to regular hours was for good.
