Bench Walker Files Case no. 1

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Bench Walker here, reporting for duty. It has come to my attention that an old man used a bench walker to sit at the front of the registers, (at the South Wall, If I am not mistaken, if my sense of direction is correct, it was facing the parking lot of Kroger at Wynnewood), - not because he was waiting for someone to pick him up, but rather, just to sit and chill out. He was about 79 years old. He was happy just to sit there and watch all of the people coming and going from Kroger. A another lady was sitting and apparently also chilling. She was not sitting on a bench walker however. She was sitting on a Kroger ride around cart made by the Amigos electric motorized shopping cart people, used for handicapped patrons of that store, and when my wife asked her if she needed it to shop, that lady politely replied, "No. I'm not shopping. I'm sitting here because there are no benches to sit at and I am old and tired and waiting for my ride to come get me." My wife had to use that cart to get around because both of her knees are in bad shape and she can barely walk in the Kroger with a shopping cart to support her. Well, I got angry when my wife came up to me over in the floral department as I had walked ahead of her and was looking at the flowers on display. My wife came walking behind me slowly, with a regular shopping cart and struggling to walk. She told me about that lady who would not give up her Amigos electric riding shopping cart as she was just sitting there waiting for a ride home. I told my wife I would take care of it. Security talked that lady into giving up her seat on that ride around cart and he brought it to me. I thanked him but said, "I don't want that lady to be at a disadvantage so why doesn't this Kroger store give those old people, who are unable to just stand there, waiting for a handy ride to come get them so they can sit on benches either out front or in the lobby rather than use those Amigo electric shopping carts, aka Ride-A-Long carts, so people like my wife don't have to struggle to walk to do their shopping?" That man told me I needed to address this to the management. He also told me that it was the City of Dallas that actually owned the property that the Kroger sits on and they had a few benches outside about half a block down, in front of a Dollar Tree. Another courtesy clerk confirmed this information. The courtesy clerk agreed with me that something needs to be done ASAP, to provide some area where the elderly who depended on a taxi or Dart Handy Rides to drop them off and pick them up later after they did their grocery shopping and that it was a problem because many of them used their own bench type walkers, the kind with a fold down seat, to sit there against the West Wall at the exit near the end of the registers, at the front end of the Kroger store, just to wait and sit to get a ride home. But nothing has been done since they removed those seats that were apparently there for that reason over a year ago but were removed to allow for customer traffic in and out of the Kroger. Well, I for one think this has to be considered very important. Don't you think that it would be better for a store, any grocery store, for that matter, to allow places for elderly and handicapped persons to sit and wait for a ride rather than take up the spaces that are needed to park those Amigo electric ride around carts much less use them to sit on? Walmart already has this system in place. They have a double entrance/exit on opposite ends of their super Walmart stores, along with double sided shopping cart parking facing the entrance from where they are parked, along with vending machines and such along both ends at the entrances of the store. When I go into a Walmart Super-center, I am happy to see all those neatly parked shopping carts, along with a row of plugged in, and charging Amigos carts, as well as a few benches, yes, benches for people to sit on and wait for a ride home, and those friendly store greeters who server many useful purposes, like seeing to it that the persons returning already bought items to customer service can get a sticker on their item to take to customer service for their refunds or exchanges. The lady or the gentleman greeter also checks each customer to make sure they paid for their purchases and they provide help when needed if it's simply that they don't know which department has toys or hardware or automotive, for example, the greeter tells them where that area of the store is located. The greeter also makes sure that the handicapped, be they elderly or very young, to contact another store associate to help find a usable and available Amigos electric ride around shopping cart. The way I see it, if Kroger adapted to the methods that Walmart already has in place, not only would my wife have it easy to get around on her Amigos cart, but those ladies and gentlemen who need a place to chill or to sit and wait for a ride home could do so with no problem either way.