For months, NewsNation local affiliate KTLA has been tracking the problems with self-checkouts across the country—companies struggling with how to staff the lanes while also securing their products. Now, one Southern California city is seeing self-checkout lanes shut down entirely after ordering companies, including grocery stores, to provide more staffing in the lanes.
In July, KTLA reported that the city of Long Beach was calling for more staffing at self-checkouts. Dubbed “Safe Stores Are Staffed Stores,” the measure requires many large grocery and retail stores to maintain a 2-to-1 staffing ratio at self-checkouts—meaning one employee could monitor no more than two self-checkout lanes at once.
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Now, some stores are shutting down the lanes entirely. At least four grocery stores in the Long Beach area shut down their self-checkouts—at least for the time being—as the new regulations took effect.
The Long Beach Post shows pictures of the self-checkout lanes closed with a sign reading, “Due to a new City of Long Beach ordinance (25-0010) regulating self-checkout operations, we are currently unable to operate our self-checkout lane.”…