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Consequences of the ban on going out – Ticino pensioners shop in Uri

Shopping tourism in Corona times: over 65-year-olds from Ticino drive through the Gotthard to be able to do their shopping undisturbed.

Get there quickly thanks to almost empty motorways: Several senior citizens from Ticino drive to Uri to shop there.

Photo: Pascal Mora (Keystone)

The Ticino government has extended its rigorous measures to combat the corona virus by two weeks until April 13. Part of this packages is the disputed ban on going out for people over 65 in many places. No buses would be distributed, the Ticino President Christian Vitta emphasized last Friday. But the principle applies that people above this age limit should not go shopping.

Wide range of shopping

The prospect of another two weeks of going out had consequences. «We noticed that, especially on Saturday, older Ticinese came to the canton of Uri to shop here,» says the Uri police commander Reto Pfister. From Bellinzona it is just over an hour by car to Erstfeld or Altdorf, where there is a wide range of shopping opportunities, from large distributors such as Coop, Migros, Aldi, Lidl to a country and regional retailers.

“If some Ticino people shop outside their canton, this is due to the crazy age limit.”

Pierre Rusconi, former SVP National Councilor from Ticino

This type of tourism cannot be prevented because there is no legal basis, emphasizes Pfister: «But it is not in the spirit and spirit of the pandemic measures if retired Ticino people swarm into neighboring cantons to do their shopping.» Former SVP National Councilor Pierre Rusconi defends his Ticino citizens: «When some people from Ticino shop outside their canton, is that due to the crazy age limit.» This is illegal and incompatible with the federal constitution, the Prohibit age discriminationsays the 70-year-old.

He takes up a suggestion from the immunologist Beda Stadler: According to this, you should assign the over 65-year-olds their own time window from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. During these two hours, they should be able to make purchases. In other countries, exclusive shopping times for seniors are already common. The Iceland supermarket chain, for example, offers such a time window to those over 65 in Northern Ireland. In Australia, from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., only over 60 year olds and people with disabilities are allowed to visit the Woolworth branches.

Easter checks

The Uri and Ticino police inform on Tuesday afternoon about the planned information and control measures and their implementation. A closure of the Gotthard-Sroute tunnels should not be an issue. For such a step the past weekend was too quiet, according to the Uri police commandant: «The A2 was almost extinct, there was no pressure to the south.» He estimates the traffic volume to be around 20 percent of a normal Palm Sunday. In addition, Federal Councilor Alain Berset made it very clear last week that a block was not infcome come.

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