Essential vs non essential items discussion

[Meerkat]

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Once again, point me to the piece of legislation where it says you cannot buy "non-essential items" in a shop. Or even where "non-essential" is defined.

A new TV would meet the legal criteria...

You can only leave home for buying basic essentials or things to maintain your house. So no, a TV isn’t included. If you challenged it in court I imagine they would take into consideration that TV selling shops were not allowed to stay open.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Such a journey may only be undertaken where there is an urgent requirement for provisions on which a VAT rate of 0% applies

So my pubescent daughter can't go out to buy tampons, and the bloke next door can't go out to put credit on his gas meter. We can go buy Jaffa Cakes though!

Again, you can't put "don't be a pillock about it" in legislation.

You can only leave home for buying basic essentials or things to maintain your house. So no, a TV isn’t included.

The legislation includes "functioning of the household". If my telly's just broken, it's essential for the functioning of a household. So would a new laptop.

I'll also ask you where the legislation says I can't buy non-essential items alongside items permitted by legislation. Does an ancillary purpose negate a primary purpose? Where does it say so in the law?

TV selling shops were not allowed to stay open.

Yes they were. Tesco sell tellies.

 

[Domh245]

You can only leave home for buying basic essentials or things to maintain your house. So no, a TV isn’t included. If you challenged it in court I imagine they would take into consideration that TV selling shops were not allowed to stay open.

The shops may not have been allowed to stay open, but they are still allowed to fulfil online orders (etc), so it's clearly not the case that buying TVs during this period is suddenly illegal. What then is the difference between ordering a TV online vs picking one up from Tesco when/if they have one available

 

[CM]

You can only leave home for buying basic essentials or things to maintain your house. So no, a TV isn’t included. If you challenged it in court I imagine they would take into consideration that TV selling shops were not allowed to stay open.

So if during the lockdown your TV breaks you just have to sit there with nothing and stare at the walls? Of course a TV is essential as it's another way of keeping folk sane whilst stuck in their houses. Don't forget, shops like Asda and Tesco also sell TVs in their supermarkets among other electrical appliances.

 

[Meerkat]

Buy the telly online and get it delivered.
if you live on your own good luck getting it out of the box on your own!

Again, you can't put "don't be a pillock about it" in legislation.

Of course you can - you use the well established legal phrase “reasonable“......

 

[Domh245]

Buy the telly online and get it delivered.

But if you're walking past a TV in the supermarket and can buy it? Seeing as you've already left the house and exposed yourself to some level of risk, is it not sensible to buy the TV there and then be able to isolate yourself at home again completely rather than having to make someone deliver the TV to your door?

 

[GB]

Buy the telly online and get it delivered.
if you live on your own good luck getting it out of the box on your own!

Of course you can - you use the well established legal phrase “reasonable“......

Pushing more online orders equals more deliveries with more interactions with delivery drivers resulting in more risks to the deliverer and recipient. Buying a TV while doing your grocery shopping adds very little extra risk. I don't know what TV's you have been buying lately but modest size TV's are very easy to get out the box with one person.

 

[Greybeard33]

Pushing more online orders equals more deliveries with more interactions with delivery drivers resulting in more risks to the deliverer and recipient.

Nonsense. There is no need for a delivery driver to come within 2m of the recipient. That is why non-essential shops are still permitted to accept online orders for home delivery.

 

[GB]

Nonsense. There is no need for a delivery driver to come within 2m of the recipient. That is why non-essential shops are still permitted to accept online orders for home delivery.

If there is no extra risk there then there is no extra risk buying it at the supermarket.

 

[Busaholic]

Anything you buy in a shop considered to be 'essential' that is normally stocked there would, by definition, be deemed as 'essential' too if it came to court imo. The citizen is not entitled, apparently, to query how the decision about what shops/trades are essential is arrived at, and so there's absolutely no reason why that citizen should not take advantage of what that shop sells. I believe it's a matter between the authorities and the shop if the authorities believed the shop concerned was 'bending the rules' by buying in goods which might contravene their 'able to open' status and it'd be an outrage if the consumer were drawn into it.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

So if during the lockdown your TV breaks you just have to sit there with nothing and stare at the walls? Of course a TV is essential as it's another way of keeping folk sane whilst stuck in their houses. Don't forget, shops like Asda and Tesco also sell TVs in their supermarkets among other electrical appliances.

You could be really pedantic and say that you "need" a television to keep abreast of all the 24-hour news updates on coronavirus along with the never-ending government adverts and messages

 

[Hadders]

Interesting discussion about essential and non essential items. My observations:

- Asking supermarkets to remove non essential items from sale is a complete non-starter. Staff need to be filling shelves, not wasting time emptying them
- Where would the items removed from the shelves be stored. There isn't space in store warehouses to do this. Returning the items to distribution centres would also not work - the staff in these centres are stretched enough picking and loading outbound deliveries to stores. Diverting them to unloading lorries of returned stock would impact the ability to get stock out to stores.
- Sealing off aisles with non-essential goods sounds attractive but who would police this? Supermarkets are already having to police queues outside stores and there really aren't the staff to police other areas of stores as well.
- Much stock is cross-merchandised so you might find frying pans by the eggs. Sealing off aisles would not work where items are cross merchandised.

I am reliably informed by people I know who work in supermarkets that sales of General Merchandise and clothing are massively down over the last few weeks so regardless of what the law does or doesn't say it does seem that these ranges aren't really selling at the moment and people aren't rushing to their local Tesco or Asda to try out the latest clothing range.

 

[Llanigraham]

You could be really pedantic and say that you "need" a television to keep abreast of all the 24-hour news updates on coronavirus along with the never-ending government adverts and messages

What about that funny thing called a radio?
And newspapers?
And the internet?
Because funnily enough I know several people without a TV and they seem to be fully aware of what is going on.

 

[farleigh]

What about that funny thing called a radio?
And newspapers?
And the internet?
Because funnily enough I know several people without a TV and they seem to be fully aware of what is going on.

Aren't newspapers non essential?

 

[yorksrob]

Newsagents are allowed to remain open, so newspapers are essential items.

 

[Tetchytyke]

And newspapers?

Where do newspapers fit in as "supplies for the essential upkeep, maintenance and functioning of the household", if a TV doesn't? Maybe if they've run out of loo roll?

Newsagents are allowed to remain open, so newspapers are essential items.

I agree with you, but off licences were also allowed to stay open and I wouldn't call a crate of Stella an essential

 

[Darandio]

Newsagents are allowed to remain open, so newspapers are essential items.

Newsagents sell a damn sight more than newspapers, utility top ups for one. Nowhere does it state that a newspaper is essential, and going out 7 days a week to obtain one makes a mockery of the current situation.

 

[yorksrob]

Newsagents sell a damn sight more than newspapers, utility top ups for one. Nowhere does it state that a newspaper is essential, and going out 7 days a week to obtain one makes a mockery of the current situation.

Considering newspapers and tobacco are the main items sold there suggests that they're considered essental. Although presumably you could get the newspaper delivered.

 

[yorksrob]

I agree with you, but off licences were also allowed to stay open and I wouldn't call a crate of Stella an essential

No, but a decent ale certainly is !

 

[Tetchytyke]

No, but a decent ale certainly is !

Amen to that!

On a serious note, it's not pedantry or a desire to be contrary that leaves me scratching my head about the police being so heavy handed. I just don't understand why they're picking battles that don't need to be fought.

Most people are mostly following the rules most of the time. What is "essential" to one person may be frivolous to another. Newspapers are a great example. I've honestly not bought a newspaper in years, but other people simply must have their morning paper. We're all in it together.

I don't see the point in threatening to search people's trolleys. I don't understand why they think it's going to help.

 

[Greybeard33]

If there is no extra risk there then there is no extra risk buying it at the supermarket.

Except for the extra time the purchaser spends in the store deciding which model of TV to buy, digging out the box from the pile and lugging it to the checkout. All of which increases the risk of interactions with other customers and staff, or touching potentially contaminated surfaces.

Better to choose and order it at home on the supermarket website, then decontaminate the box with soapy water as soon as the delivery driver leaves it on the doorstep.

 

[yorkie]

Better to choose and order it at home on the supermarket website, then decontaminate the box with soapy water as soon as the delivery driver leaves it on the doorstep.

Or wash your hands after opening it

 

[Tetchytyke]

Better to choose and order it at home on the supermarket website, then decontaminate the box with soapy water as soon as the delivery driver leaves it on the doorstep.

Although you then need to factor in the supermarket warehouse staff digging the TV out, loading it on the courier's HGV, more courier staff unloading it at the distribution centre and sorting it onto a van, and then the delivery driver taking it out.

We're seeing with the Royal Mail that they're finding it impossible to keep social distancing in sorting offices. I can't imagine courier firms are finding it any easier in their distribution centres, especially for items that require more than one person to lift.

Suddenly that five minutes choosing a telly in Asda doesn't seem so bad.

 

[johnnychips]

Better to choose and order it at home on the supermarket website, then decontaminate the box with soapy water as soon as the delivery driver leaves it on the doorstep.

If you do this, that’s your choice, and that’s fine. It’s a free country. But as @yorkie has pointed out many times, most people are expected to get the virus sooner or later; the lockdown is just to prevent the NHS getting overwhelmed at once. Of course if you are in a vulnerable group or living with someone who is, I understand your caution.

Then again, one hopes that the social distancing rules are well applied in all these warehouses from where this upsurge in demand is dispatched.

Edit: I see Tetchytike made many of the same points. We must have been writing at the same time.

Incidentally IKEA will not deliver stuff that takes more than one person to lift.

 

[ashkeba]

I don’t think there is any harm in a bit of over zealous messaging - raises the debate and makes people consider what they are doing.
buying non-essential stuff does probably increase the number of shopping trips made

Maybe talking about shopping all the time increases the number of shopping trips made?

 

[Greybeard33]

- Asking supermarkets to remove non essential items from sale is a complete non-starter. Staff need to be filling shelves, not wasting time emptying them
- Where would the items removed from the shelves be stored. There isn't space in store warehouses to do this. Returning the items to distribution centres would also not work - the staff in these centres are stretched enough picking and loading outbound deliveries to stores. Diverting them to unloading lorries of returned stock would impact the ability to get stock out to stores.
- Sealing off aisles with non-essential goods sounds attractive but who would police this? Supermarkets are already having to police queues outside stores and there really aren't the staff to police other areas of stores as well.
- Much stock is cross-merchandised so you might find frying pans by the eggs. Sealing off aisles would not work where items are cross merchandised.

Hardly an insuperable challenge! Just move the non essential stuff to one end of the store and cordon it off. That would give a more efficient flow of customers around the remaining aisles. No need for staff to "police" it - program the tills not to accept non essential items.

But heaven forfend the supermarkets should be asked to do anything that might dent the extra profits they are raking in during this crisis! Meanwhile Debenhams is not allowed to open and has gone bust....

 

[yorkie]

...But heaven forfend the supermarkets should be asked to do anything that might dent the extra profits they are raking in during this crisis! ...

As well as completely missing the point, this is an unfair and misleading remark. Supermarkets are incurring a lot of additional costs.

 

[Bantamzen]

Hardly an insuperable challenge! Just move the non essential stuff to one end of the store and cordon it off. That would give a more efficient flow of customers around the remaining aisles. No need for staff to "police" it - program the tills not to accept non essential items.

But heaven forfend the supermarkets should be asked to do anything that might dent the extra profits they are raking in during this crisis! Meanwhile Debenhams is not allowed to open and has gone bust....

I'm still waiting for this list of "non-essential" items you propose to cordon off.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You could be really pedantic and say that you "need" a television to keep abreast of all the 24-hour news updates on coronavirus along with the never-ending government adverts and messages

A radio would certainly pass as essential if you had no other means of keeping abreast of developments.

 

[island]

For the reasonable excuses defined above there is nothing about the frequency of those, the length of time that those have to take nor the distance you may travel to undertake those reasonable excuses.

Nor is there a prohibition on doing something that is not on the list whilst out to do something that is. Buying food at Sainsbury’s and also buying a patio chair at the in-store Argos, or playing Pokémon Go whilst out exercising, would not seem to me to offend the legislation.

I forget who said it and have not quite managed to find my way around the new forum software to quote it, but someone also mentioned defining essentials as grocery items carrying 0% VAT. I’ll accept that if you let me attend (by video link of course) whilst you explain to Karen from Doncaster that she can‘t buy chocolate digestives, crisps, fizzy pop, a bag of fruit pastilles, ice cream, or a bar of Dairy Milk.