Dollar General dedicating first hour of shopping to senior citizens

Dollar General is dedicating the first hour of store operations to seniors, encouraging locations to honor the practice to protect older customers during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

“Dollar General wants to provide these at-risk customers with the ability to purchase the items they need and want at the beginning of each day to avoid busier and more crowded shopping periods,” the company said in a statement released on Twitter. “Other customers are encouraged to plan their shopping trips around this window of time to allow the most susceptible customers in our communities the ability to shop during the first hour that stores are open.”

Other customers are not excluded during the first hour, but CEO Todd Vasos said in a statement that the company hopes customers will honor the request and visit locations after at later times.

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Dollar General has more than 16,000 stores nationwide, including several in this region. The statement says the company also is planning to close stores one hour earlier “to allow employees to clean and re-stock store shelves, as well as for their health and well-being.”

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