ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 TAG: 9702180070
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ROSWELL, GA.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Perched over a pair of parking spaces, the smiling stork on the shiny new sign offers a surprise for drivers who think they've just scored a prime spot near the supermarket door:
``New and expectant moms only.''
Everybody else take another lap around the parking lot - spots for mothers are multiplying.
``You're carrying all this weight around, you're not feeling as good as you usually do,'' says Caroline King of Atlanta, who is eight months' pregnant with her second child. ``I think they are great.''
``We think that for those who are handicapped and pregnant it's the right thing to do,'' says Brent Scott, a spokesman for The Kroger Co., a Cincinnati-based grocery chain.
No Kroger supermarkets in Southwest Virginia offer the service yet, said the chain's Roanoke spokesman Archie Fralin. Regionally, the company is testing the idea of reserved spots for moms with kids at its new store in Cary, N.C.
Also, some stores in the Charlotte, N.C.-based Harris Teeter chain, began offering the new mom spots more than a year ago. Now they're reserved for burdened souls in general, labeled loosely as ``assisted parking'' spots.
The Harris Teeter at Gables Shopping Center in Blacksburg has set aside eight spaces for customers with special needs. Several are for handicapped customers, while others are reserved for expectant moms or people who have been injured recently and can't walk far.
Clearly it's an idea being tried by several merchants. A Publix Super Market manager in Atlanta got the idea from a Cuban grocery. Kroger stores copied it from a supermarket in Colorado. And Venture discount stores, based in O'Fallon, Mo., have them throughout the Midwest.
Not everyone is feeling so generous about the idea, however.
``What about people with warts on their feet?'' asks E. Scott Gellar, 55, a Virginia Tech psychologist who studies motorists and their behavior. ``What about the elderly? Walking for some of us older folks isn't easy either.''
Why not hemorrhoid sufferers? Or people suffering bad-hair days?
Wait just a second - if anyone needs parking privileges it's the parents of toddlers, says Joanie Randle of Athens, Ga., the mother of four children aged 4 to 9.
``Being pregnant is not a disability,'' Randle insists. ``That's not the time when you need extra attention. It's when you have a 2-year-old.''
``Why don't we just have revolving reserved spots so each time you come to the store, you might have a chance at your own spot?'' asks Karen Colvin of Atlanta, who is toddler-free and pretty much unencumbered.
One consideration for stores that want to offer reserved spaces for moms is the size of the parking lot. "If you're giving preferential treatment to any one group of people, those spots have to come from the spots normally available to everybody," Kroger's Fralin said.
The Cary store was chosen as a test site for Kroger's program, he said, because it has ample parking.
And the practice can't really be enforced because there is no penalty for stealing the spots, no pregnancy police writing pink and blue tickets.
They really aren't reserved then, are they? asks Gellar.
``We learn we can do things in our cars and get away with it,'' he says. ```Hey, I don't have to read that map now. I'll read it in the car. I can put my makeup on in the car.' Well, people are going to say, `I'm just going to park there.'"
``Drivers today are on edge,'' Gellar adds. ``We are asked to do more with less at work. We have top-down management. We feel out of control. Then we get in our cars, and we are free and in control. If someone or something gets in our way, watch out!''
Lighten up, said King, the mom-to-be.
``Aren't we taking this a little too seriously?''
Staff writer Megan Schnabel contributed to this report.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Susan Johnston loads groceries into her car whileby CNBparked in a space reserved for new and expectant mothers. color.