Officials: Buy what you need for 2 weeks, don’t stock up for a month

Las Vegas officials are urging shoppers to buy only the essentials after shops were emptied of provisional items — including the all-too-hard-to-find toilet paper.

Companies are pushing out more products to meet the sharp increase in demand, according to Dave Brower, vice president of risk management for Truline Corp., a local trucking company that delivers products to businesses, during a news conference Sunday. The amount of deliveries to stores increased last week.

“Business has picked up dramatically and everyone’s working together to do that,” he said. “We’ve been able to meet the demands that they’re requesting to be able to keep the commodities on the shelves.”

The company has been authorized by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to have more “leeway” on hours of service, he said. Usually drivers are allowed to work 14 hours and drive 11 hours. However, with the increase in demand, wait times at distribution centers have increased from 2-4 hours to more than 6 hours.

“With this leeway that allows us to do the work safely,” he said.

Clark County Commission Chair Marilyn Kirkpatrick advised people buy up to two weeks of supplies, but not to stock up for a month.

“We have many people within our community that are on a fixed income or they don’t have the ability to stock up,” she said. “So, we need to ensure that when they can go to the grocery store that there is product available for them.”

For small businesses, there are emergency loans available to them through Vegas Chamber at VegasChamber.com, said Mary Beth Sewald, the organization’s president and CEO.

“We just want to make sure that the biggest chamber is providing every resource we can,” Sewald said.

On Saturday, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department issued its own plea to the public about the run on stores.

“One of the things we want to urge the public is that we know that there’s a difficult time going on in the world right now, but there is no reason for you guys to be going into the stores late at night and hoarding some of the supplies due to the fact that there are plenty of supplies left in the stores at this point,” Officer Aden OcampoGomez said.

Some psychologists and mental health researchers characterize this type of mass shopping as an emotional response in the absence of clarity on how much of an impact the coronavirus will have on economies throughout the country.

Las Vegas has been hit especially hard by convention cancellations, a decline in visitation and layoffs at Strip resorts and related industries.

As of Saturday, health officials have announced 21 cases of coronavirus in Nevada, with 16 cases in Clark County, four in Washoe County and one in Carson City.

Contact Alex Chhith at achhith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0290. Follow @alexchhith on Twitter.