Police called after woman pulls knife in toilet paper aisle
Police were called to Parramatta Westfield after a woman pulled a knife in a supermarket toilet paper aisle amid citywide panic about coronavirus which has led to shops being stripped bare of essentials.
NSW
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NSW Police have brushed aside an incident where a woman pulled a knife on a shopper who had taken the toilet paper at a Sydney supermarket.
Officers attended Westfield Parramatta about 1.30pm today after reports of a disturbance at Woolworths.
Staff members told police there had been an argument between a man and a woman over the toilet paper.
“There was a minor dispute about toilet paper at the shops, yes,” a police source said.
“Part of the reason for it is that one of the parties is a particularly vulnerable person who is deaf and mute.
“It was just a minor dispute and it had been separated by the time police went there.
“In the grand scheme of things, it was minor. No one was injured, everyone was okay.”
The woman who pulled the knife was escorted out of the shopping centre by police and no charges are expected to be laid.
It comes as hordes of people panic buy items in the wake of the coronavirus sweeping the world.
Supermarkets have enforced limits on toilet paper, hand sanitiser and other essential products.
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Operational manager Louise Taylor said the Taren Point business was “absolutely swamped” with phone calls and emails, with back orders for face masks doubling by the day.
“There’s been a sharp increase in sales, people are finding us online as they’ve had difficulty in store,” she said.
“I have been in the business roughly five years and I’ve never seen something like this, but I’ve never seen something like the coronavirus.
“We’re able to fill, thankfully, a lot of them but there’s still a lot of products on back order because of the delays in the Asian region with manufacturing.
“Surgical masks are obviously in a backlog — I’ve been trying to get my hands on a few.”
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Ms Taylor said the business was being honest with their roughly 40,000 clients, including schools, businesses and hospitals, explaining they would have to wait for certain products.
“We’re being upfront and saying, ‘Hey you’re probably not going to get stock until May, possibly June’,” she said.
“It’s completely up in the air on how severe this spreads.”
Despite a surge in customers, Ms Taylor said they would not be increasing prices.
Customer Shane Mac said his wife who works at Caringbah Coles told him the store could not keep up with sales.
“The order they got in yesterday for today, went last night,” he said. “It’s just hysteria.”
Mr Mac said he was purchasing three cartons (24-48 rolls) of three-ply toilet paper for work and to use at home.