Bag-less, but mag-less too: the ominous "clutter-free" grocery checkout

The typical front checkout is non-existent at this store. They have opened it up just like the rest of the store. There are no candy bars, no magazines...just the checkout!

-- from an item in the blog My Eyes Glaze Over, rhapsodizing about a new-concept Loblaws Superstore in Milton, Ontario.

A press release issued by Loblaws at the end of August was headlined by the fact that this pioneering Milton location is the first North American retail store to be "bagless", with customers strongly encouraged to buy reusable cloth bags or use reusable plastic boxes; no plastic bags area available at the checkout.

But the release also made a point of saying that the store has "Clutter-Free Check Out Lanes: For time-pressed customers, there will be no magazines, confectionary or other items usually found at the check-out."

This is not good news for the bigger circulation magazines which rely on impulse buys of single copies in checkout lanes; how ominous to be referred to as so much "clutter".