Could those doing the town-hopping thing be seen as akin to looters?
I think so, despite paying for what they are taking, because they are flocking to smaller towns and villages, from further afield, and buying up everything they can get their hands on in the wake of the Coronavirus scare, and that is really unfair. It is also very wrong.
We already know about the toilet paper nonsense, it’s happening here just like everywhere else, and many of the people stripping supplies from my local supermarket have come from Sydney and surrounds and for some reason believe they are justified in coming to our small village and emptying the supermarket shelves, at which point some may then go home. But many will opt to stay on, thinking they will be safer from the virus here.
Except we don’t want them here.
Many locals are now being confronted with depleted shelves, every day, and apparently it is because those who have turned up from outside of the area are waiting at the supermarkets at 7am for the doors to open, and then stripping whatever has been delivered the evening before, leaving little, if anything, left for the local population. They are doing this every day! We haven’t seen toilet paper here for weeks. Yes, it has been coming in overnight but is all bought out in about twenty minutes, because people who have travelled into the village are stocking up here before they leave to go home, but many are making no move to leave just yet, but continue to shop up a storm.
But just how much toilet paper, rice, pasta and other non-perishable food items do they need? And how about the local population who don’t need these grasping out-of-town travellers here in the first place? Why do these people believe they are more entitled to the local supermarket’s stock than the people who actually live here? It’s disgraceful!
But it’s not just here. This is the story in small towns and villages up and down the coast as well as inland. They have been invaded by city people wanting to stock up on far more supplies than they need and then decide to sit the virus out in the regional area they are depleting. If they weren’t behaving so selfishly, they may be welcome, but they come, they strip our resources and stubbornly refuse to move on. Those that have gone home have done so with their vehicles loaded to bursting point with what they have stripped from local outlets, leaving local populations struggling just to get the basics. It is incredibly selfish.
I can see riots happening in the near future over this. We have already seen altercations in supermarkets between shoppers with loaded trolleys, determined not to allow a single packet of toilet paper go to someone else, and getting violent over it. It is going to happen over food lines and inevitably, those with the fullest trolleys are often the perpetrators because they refuse to acknowledge that others also have a right to buy. Honestly, there is enough for everyone. Supermarkets in Australia are not threatening closures and product lines are in good supply, so there is absolutely no need to go on a rampage through the aisles or to be lashing out at others just trying to do their normal food shop. There shouldn’t be shortages, and there wouldn’t be if the panic buyers would just stop, so we could all get what we need and be done with it. Simple! But they won’t stop. Honestly, the town-hoppers really need to pack up and head back home.
Seriously, JUST GO HOME!