The increased demand for pellets which made the stockholding run low, led to "the customer competition" among the local residents.
The endless queue of more than 100 persons has formed by the building hypermarket Payzant Home Hardware Building Centre in Lower Sackville long before its opening. All these people are looking for wood pellets.
Sherrill Skallik came to the shop at about 6 o’clock a.m. and was the second in the queue. "It takes long hours of waiting but it is worth making such efforts. If we cannot find pellets nowhere else in the district, we have to build up the queue", says she.
The current demand is so buoyant that it becomes impossible to take control over the situation, that’s why the administration of the hypermarket has made a new order of the pellet sales. "A few weeks ago we had received a lorry loaded with pellets, and the absolute chaos broke out and persisted during a few consequent hours, eventually we became aware that it is high time that the changes were imposed", recalls Matthew Payzant, the chief director of the hypermarket.
Now the clients willing to purchase pellets must at first buy a special ticket. After that, they have to join the queue and pay for their goods. A maximum limit of the sales per receipt is 10 bags of pellets.
"Most of the people would have bought 10, 20 and even 30 bags at one stroke. Usually we receive pellets throughout the whole year but the regular deliveries had ceased more than six weeks ago", explains Mr. Payzant.
"It’s sheer madness, - says Kim Arts, desperate about being unable to find pellets in Halifax – I was trying to buy five bags of pellets a week, but two days ago my stock had dwindled. One part of my house is heated by pellets, consequently the electricity bill would increase significantly. It had never occurred before that we were left without pellets and were compelled to look for them everywhere." Mr. Arts usually utilizes one bag of pellets a day and he states that he has never faced the like deficit before.
At 9 o’clock a.m. the lorry loaded with 1600 bags of pellets arrives at the hypermarket Payzant, and its entire load is being sold before it gets unloaded.
Matthew Payzant says that the reason for the current situation was the cold and late winter, which took the people by surprise.
