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Grocery stores report brisk sales of essentials By Peter Wong of the Mail Tribune Several Rogue Valley grocery stores reported brisk sales of canned food and bottled water Thursday as people prepared for the worst at the end of the millennium. Or was there something else driving those sales? "Business is considerably up from this time last year," said Tom Ames, manager of Ray's Food Place in Central Point. "But it's going to be hard to measure. Obviously, some people are stocking up -- we are selling oil lamps, too -- but we planned ahead and ordered lots of bottled water and canned food. So we are ready." The brisk sales could be driven by public fears about what might happen to power supplies and food distribution systems if some computers read "00" as 1900 instead of 2000. But Ames said demand also was driven up by Oregon's release of welfare payments and food stamps to 98,000 households a few days early. The electronic transfers to recipients started Tuesday, in anticipation of potential computer problems, rather than after Jan. 1. Recipients use Oregon Trail debit cards for their purchases. "That has been a definite influence," he said. The heavy sales, have apparently resulted in few shortages. "A lot of people are thinking that something may be happening, so we are selling a lot of canned food, and water is going fast," said Charles Medina, a supervisor at Foodland in White City. "But we stocked up in advance, and we are getting our weekly shipment Friday." At Food 4 Less on Biddle Road in Medford, a clerk reported that among the most popular purchases are bread, bottled water and milk. She said the manager was not available for comment because he had been at the checkstand all day. Two Ashland grocery stores also reported brisk sales. "We are overwhelmed," said a spokesman at Ashland Community Food Store. A supervisor at Shop n Kart, Eric Chaddock, said Thursday's sales were nearly double those on the same date last year. In addition to sales of 22 pallets of bottled water in four days, twice the normal rate, he said, shoppers were buying 25- and 50-pound sacks of grains, beans and other legumes -- as well as the containers to hold them and the oxygen packets to preserve them. He said pasta and canned soups also were selling well. Though stocks are being depleted faster than usual, he said, wholesalers are able to meet the demand. Additional information for this story was supplied by Mail Tribune contributor John Darling. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA