The Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) wants to avoid overflows: it has hired more than 150 security guards to support the workers in its stores, who must require the vaccination passport of all customers from today.
Without providing a specific address, the SAQ told the Journal that these security guards were going to be deployed “primarily in large, busy branches”. Their task: “To make sure that everything runs smoothly”.
These are “mainly” employees from the Garda company.
In the province, the state corporation has more than 400 branches. The vaccination passport requirement will not apply in SAQ agencies (some 430), which are located in grocery stores or convenience stores.
Despite the presence of agents, it is still mainly SAQ employees who will be responsible for checking the vaccination status of customers at the entrance to their establishment, with the help of a cell phone.
Management says it has encouraged its managers to first choose “volunteer” employees to apply this new measure and has proposed to its executives to carry out “an employee rotation” at the door.
Worried regarding the passport
In recent days, several SAQ workers have confided that they are worried regarding the imposition of the vaccine passport. Some fear the reactions that some customers may have when checking out.
This was particularly the case for workers in a branch in eastern Montreal.
“There are plenty of employees who are afraid of dealing with frustrated or violent customers. Seriously, it’s not my role to do security at the entrance. If it gets tough, I’m not going to ask for the vaccine passport, ”an attendant told us.
For its part, the SAQ ensures that it has “done the necessary” to put this measure in place, replied the spokesperson, Yann Langlais-Plante, not being however able to quantify the invoice for the company. State.
“For the cell phones used to validate our clients’ vaccination passports, we did business with an NPO that recycles used cell phones, which allows us to implement the measure at a lower cost,” he specifies.
Two devices were sent to each branch, as well as to each branch of the Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) network. Unlike the SAQ, a security guard has already been posted at each SQDC store since 2018.
Starting tomorrow, all SAQ and SQDC employees who are not adequately vaccinated will also no longer be able to buy alcohol or cannabis in stores, even if they continue to work there.
They will have to do their shopping via the online service.
Without being able to provide figures, the SAQ claims not to have seen “an extraordinary increase” in its sales in recent days, due to the imposition of the vaccine passport.
Online delivery times are also always 5-7 days.
– With the collaboration of Olivier Bourque
