Canal’s Discount Liquor Mart in Camden County reopened this weekend just about a week after it closed from a crush of customers -- many from just over the bridge in Philadelphia where state-run liquor stores had been ordered closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A colorful LED message board flashed Sunday beneath a sign for the liquor mart.

“Social Distancing Saves Lives,” it said.

Motorists zipping past on Route 38 East didn’t seem to glean any special meaning from it. But folks who pulled over into the postage-stamp sized front parking lot and walked up to the store quickly gained insight.

“Please form a line here,” employee Ryan Gaskill told people arriving at the Pennsauken store.

The line quickly dissolved as a steady stream of people came and went from the store four hours before its scheduled 7 p.m. closing.

Last week it was anything but smooth going.

“When Friday hit, we had a massive influx of people,” said Johnny Canal, a manager in the family-run store. “We were up 120% over a normal Friday and Saturday. We were pulling so many people from Pennsylvania and a lot of people really didn’t care about social distancing and I could see the staff was getting worried.”

Canal said he tossed and turned in bed Saturday night before deciding to shutter the store Sunday.

“We had to do something to protect the staff and the community,” Canal said.

Pennsylvania closed its state-run liquor stores on March 16.

Canal said his store, less than four miles from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, was among a handful of stores in New Jersey closest to Philadelphia. They are known as "bridge stores” by many in their trade.

"There was a panic, a tsunami of business,” said Paul Santelle, executive director of the New Jersey Liquor Store Association, a trade group for “package store” owners. It was a scary level of business never seen before. It was like the last two weeks before Christmas and New Year.”

Santelle’s family owns and operates Garden State Liquors in Perth Amboy. He said his store was also hit with a rush of customers stocking up after Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency and ordered nonessential businesses closed.

But he admitted it wasn’t like the crush of people pouring over the bridge from Philadelphia. Liquor stores in New York remain open. Santelle said he gets customers traveling along the crossroads where Interstate 287 and other heavily traveled routes in New Jersey converge near Perth Amboy. He considers his business to be a bridge store.

“Store owners were not prepared for the panic took place at a lot of stores,” Santelle said. “Consumers need to be patient.

Santelle said his store remained open but up to a third of his delivery order this week was not on the truck. He said some best-selling items like 30-can packs of Coors and Miller Light were available as 24-can packs so he said consumers may just have to adjust until inventory catches up with demand. He thinks that will be within the coming weeks.

Ryan Gaskill limits customers at Canal's Discount Liquors in Pennsauken, N.J. when it reopened this weekend.

Meanwhile, Gaskill kept the line moving Sunday at Canal’s. He said Sunday was nothing like Friday afternoon when the liquor mart reopened and the new system of limiting the customers in the store started.

“The line was around the building that day,” said Gaskill, 20, who said he picked up extra hours here after his job selling cars at a Kia dealership laid him off because of the pandemic.

Canal said the only item he can’t get from his distributors if Everclear grain alcohol, which he said some customers where buying by the case and using for hand sanitizer.

He said in addition to limiting the number of shoppers in his one-story liquor mart, they’re also closing two hours earlier than normal, at 8 p.m.

Canal said his store sales were still up about 50% in the past two days since it reopened, even with limited hours.

“If they closed, they closed,” said Elliot Bernard, a Pennsauken resident who came to shop Sunday. “It ain’t no problem. I’m just going to get a bottle of wine.”

State health officials on Sunday reported 2,316 new known cases of the coronavirus in New Jersey as the statewide total climbed to at least 13,386 with at least 161 deaths, and the potential peak of the outbreak could still be weeks away.

New Jersey, a state with 9 million residents, remains second in the nation for COVID-19 cases after New York. The Sunday increase was the second consecutive day with more than 2,000 new cases.

- Staff writer Matt Arco contributed to this report.

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