Just six days into Tulsa’s safer at home order and many people are wondering why some businesses are still open and why they aren’t practicing social distancing.
Mayor G.T. Bynum weighed in on those concerns at a press conference Friday.
"One of the frequent ones that gets pointed out to me are hardware stores, but the reality is that people and the Governor listed that as an essential business, and the reality is we can’t ask everyone to stay home and then not maintain the home in which we’re asking them to stay," Bynum said.
Stores are starting to implement different policies to limit customer and employee exposure.
This week, Lowes announced they'll be increasing pay for workers and letting store managers limit customers inside.
Home Depot and Target are limiting customers inside their stores and having others wait in lines outside with each person 6 feet apart.
Bynum says even if a store is not doing something to create space between customers, people should be using common sense to keep themselves and others safe.
"I’ve heard a lot of concerns about people bringing their whole family to the store. That's just about the worst idea I can think of," Bynum said. "You should go one person in your household if you have to go to the store and you should minimize the number of times that you go."
Bynum also said that the city could consider recommendations for people in certain areas to only shop on certain days to limit overcrowding at essential stores, but says he has not made a decision on if or when the city would do something like that.
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