Via News 360:
Venezuelan authorities have found a way to reduce the long lines generated by shortages at state-run supermarkets: turn away most of those trying to queue up.
To shorten the lines, police today began to enforce a directive from President Nicolas Maduro’s administration that limits consumers to two shopping days per week at government-owned food stores, said Alejandro Milano, a coordinator of Venezuela’s Food Mission.
Thousands lined up outside shops last week as an acute scarcity of foreign currency deepened shortages of everything from sugar to shampoo. The crisis led Interior Minister Carmen Melendez to deploy state security forces to ensure order.
“An ID card to buy food?” said Jose Gomez, a 32-year-old electrician, after being turned away at Bicentenario food market in central Caracas. “I guess I’ll have to go hungry until Friday.”
Police turned away many shoppers under a new system that limited access to stores based on the last digit on a shopper’s national ID card. Venezuela’s Immigration service, SAIME, also checked foreign shoppers’ papers to confirm legal residency.
“The smuggling and long lines are over,” said Milano, 37, who was overseeing security at the state-run Bicentenario store in central Caracas. “This is a much fairer system.”