Rhode Island

Hate self-checkout at the grocery store? A RI bill to limit it is back.

Published

2 months ago

April 7, 2026

Press Room

Hate self-checkout at the grocery store? A RI bill to limit it is back.

Rhode Island lawmakers are considering a bill to limit grocery stores to eight self-checkout kiosks.
The proposed legislation would also require one employee for every two self-checkout stations.
The bill specifically targets grocery stores, which has drawn criticism from business associations.

PROVIDENCE – As lawmakers debate raising Rhode Island’s minimum wage, which would impact many grocery store workers, a bill to limit the number of self-checkout lanes at grocery stores is again stirring conversation.

Rep. Megan Cotter, D-Exeter, Hopkinton, Richmond, introduced a version of her initial bill, proposed in 2023, to reduce the number of self-checkout kiosks a grocery store can have open, and mandate the amount of labor required to operate them. Her bill, H 7290, has eight co-sponsors in the House, while Senate President Valarie Lawson, D-East Providence, introduced a companion bill in the Senate, S 2342.

When Cotter’s bill was first introduced, it included a mandate that grocers give a 10% discount to customers who used self-checkout for more than 10 items. The newest iteration scraps that language in favor of a more streamlined approach:

Grocery stores can have no more than eight self-checkout kiosks operating at one time.
One checkout line must be manned for every two self-checkout kiosks.
One worker must be assigned to every two self-checkout stations.

Here’s how the math on the self-checkout proposal works:

For a store operating the maximum number of self-checkout kiosks, eight, this means the store would be running four lines with cashiers at a time. That same store would also need four people monitoring the self-checkout stations, for a total of eight workers across 12 cash registers, both manned and unmanned.

Limiting the number of self-checkout aisles a store can have is all about preserving jobs and hours worked, she previously said.

Why stores are using self-checkout

In 2023, Cotter said her original bill was partially a function of her frustration with using the Walmart self-checkout kiosks.

Problems with self-checkout kiosks abound as each industry, from groceries to pharmacies to hardware to big box stores like Walmart, sets different parameters and triggers on self-checkout machines.

Clements’ Marketplace Operations Director Charles Anthony IV wrote in testimony against Cotter’s bill that the grocery, with locations in Bristol and Portsmouth, installed the self-checkout kiosks to be their “fast lanes.”

“With smaller orders often causing backups across the Front End, the Fast Lanes have helped to maintain a steady pace and take care of our customers more efficiently,” Anthony wrote.

At Target, self-checkout was meant to be limited to people with 10 items or fewer.

Why limit self-checkout?

Cotter’s bill only targets grocery stores. That caught the attention of Rhode Island Food Dealers Association President Scott Bromberg, who submitted testimony against the proposal.

“This proposal is especially egregious because it specifically targets only grocery stores,” Bromberg wrote. “Big box retailers, along with hardware stores, pharmacies, dollar stores, fast food chains and more utilize self-checkout to allow them to deploy their staff where needed most.”

The bill mostly targets traditional grocery stores, but also hits pharmacies, like CVS and Walgreens, but might not include big box retailers like Walmart and Target.

It defines groceries as:

Raw or processed food or drink
Prescription and over-the-counter drugs
Hygiene items when a store also sells food, drink and “miscellaneous household items” like laundry detergent and dishwasher soap.

A grocery store is defined as a business that gets most of its revenue from selling “groceries.”

Shaw’s and Star Market’s Jim O’Leary wrote that 60% to 65% of its transactions are done via self-checkout systems and 10% are done through its drive-up platform.

“Only approximately 25% of customers utilize traditional staffed registers. This distribution highlights the importance of maintaining adaptive service models to accommodate a broad spectrum of consumer preferences, thereby enhancing the overall shopping experience and most importantly convenience,” O’Leary wrote.

Which RI stores use self-checkout?

Stores in the state offer a wide variety of takes on self-checkout.

At many Five Below stores, self-checkout is the only option. Home Depot has replaced most checkout lanes at the front of many its stores with self-checkout lanes.

At the discount grocer Aldi, many stores have open self-checkout kiosks. Depending on how slow business is, it can sometimes take a few minutes for a cashier to return to a regular checkout lane, as employees do double duty as cashiers and stockers. Customers are also expected to do their own bagging.

Stop & Shops usually have a variety of self-checkout kiosks and cashiers, but the kiosks practically shout at customers and the scales, meant to prevent theft, often wrongly register item weights, forcing a worker to override the machine after an item is bagged too quickly, or not quickly enough.

Many CVS stores also have the self-checkout kiosks.

Self-checkouts have also moved into the world of fast food, for example at Taco Bell and McDonald’s, shifting workers away from being cashiers.

Is low-skill labor worth keeping?

The two-self checkout restriction bills are aimed at preserving jobs often classified as entry level or low skill.

The worth and value of those jobs is increasingly under fire by legislators and the business community, especially as the debate over minimum wage increases rages.

Rep. Stephen Casey, D-Woonsocket, made the case during a hearing on March 18 that it would be unfair for the minimum wage to be increased because public sector workers don’t make enough, making an argument that low-skilled labor deserves to be paid less.

“So the average fireman in Rhode Island makes $28.06 an hour, so you’re saying that the guy that’s flipping burgers should make $20 an hour?” Casey asked during the hearing.

That argument also appeared during the debate over a bill to give health care workers time-and-a-half on Sundays, as Woonsocket resident Jason Romblad said he was “amazed that people selling us a pack of gum will get time-and-a-half on these days, but a health care worker who takes care of us when we are sick and hurt do not get it.”

A separate bill to strip caterers and commissary workers of time-and-a-half on Sundays and holidays was lauded by businesses groups that called for ending the practice entirely. National Federation of Independent Businesses State Director Christopher Carlozzi wrote in support of ending the benefit, claiming that paying minimum wage workers $24 an hour on Sundays instead of the mandated $16 (a $64 pre-tax difference for an eight-hour shift) means the difference between opening a shop on Sundays or leaving it closed.

According to the state’s latest Occupational Employment And Wage Statistics, published in May 2025, cashiers, an estimated 9,710 of them in the state, make a mean average of $15.90 an hour. That climbs to $16.67 an hour for “experienced wage.” The entry wage was $14 an hour, the minimum wage in 2024.

In January, the minimum wage increased to $16 an hour and it increases to $17 an hour on Jan. 1, 2027.

Other large groups of similarly paid professions are fast food and counter workers, 12,650 of them; dining room and cafeteria attendants, 2,720 of them; and dishwashers, 2,830 of them.

The statistics count an estimated 493,800 employed, making cashiers 2% of the total employment in the state.

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Rhode Island

How did La Salle win another state title? Having an ace up its sleeve.

Published

10 hours ago

June 7, 2026

Press Room

How did La Salle win another state title? Having an ace up its sleeve.

PROVIDENCE – The result was so obvious, everyone should have seen it coming.

That’s because Hailey Vigneau doesn’t lose big games.

The La Salle softball team might have been hammered by Chariho during their regular season matchups, but none of that mattered in the postseason. The state’s seen plenty of big-time pitchers, but none that have won like Vigneau. Saturday’s championship game against Chariho only added to her legacy, as she took care of things in the circle, Nikki Pallotta led the offense and the 5-2 win gave the Rams their fourth straight state title.

“We just know how hard we work,” Vigneau said. “We know we have each other. We know how supportive of each other we are. We just know that our team, in the end, will come out on top.”

Softball pitchers are supposed to strike fear with fastballs and sit batters down faster than they can get up to plate. You won’t find many teams that say they’re afraid of Vigneau, but you also won’t find any teams that have beaten her in a game that matters most.

The La Salle senior – who will pitch at Marist next spring – didn’t look bothered by the magnitude of the game she was pitching. If Chariho beat the Rams – which it had done twice this season – that meant an if-game where momentum would be on the Chargers side.

It seemed like a possibility, provided you ignored the fact that Vigneau has never lost a playoff game and wasn’t about to start in her senior season.

Vigneau made one mistake pitch that Adriana Jeannenot hit to outer space, a two-run blast that tied the game in the top of the fourth inning. She took the ball from the umpire, then retired the next batter to end the inning and get her offense on the field.

“I just have to focus on the next one. I can’t dwell on it,” said Vigneau, who gave up four hits and walked two while striking out eight. “Now I can reflect on it, fix what I know I messed up on.

“I didn’t even look. I didn’t turn my head.”

The bats went out and supported their ace. Pallotta had the go-ahead hit, a two-run double that scored Izzy Dong and Samantha Sell. While Pallotta and the Rams struggled to hit Jeannenot in clutch moments in the regular season, it was clear they figured something out.

“Their pitcher is really good and she shut us down in the first game,” said Pallotta, who went 3-for-4 with two RBI and three runs Saturday. “In the second game we started to pick up some hits, we started to learn a lot.

“We were lucky enough to play them twice, we got a lot of data off of that and so when we came into RIC … we had a lot of information and we used it.”

Armed with a 5-2 lead, Vigneau took care of things. The home run was a distant memory and when Alaina Valuk led off the fifth with a single, Vigneau barely noticed. She was in control and remained calm, right up until the final out was recorded, ending her career with a fourth straight title celebration.

“I just pitch one pitch at a time, no matter what the situation is in the game,” Vigneau said. “I can’t focus too much on the big win ahead, just one pitch at a time.”

Chariho was emotional after the loss and why wouldn’t it be? The Chargers entered the season with so much promise, finally got over the hump of beating La Salle and then did it twice in this spring.

But the two playoff losses – Saturday as well as the winners’ bracket final – showed that Chariho still has some work to do to in order to get that title the program wants. The loss will only help inspire the Chargers to keep chasing it next season.

“We had a phenomenal season. I’ve never been more proud of this team,” Jeannenot said. “… It definitely pushes us to go for even bigger things. This year our main thing was to beat La Salle, now I feel like we can have even bigger goals and we can have more success.”

This was supposed to be the year La Salle lost. The Rams graduated all that offensive talent, there’s no way they can overpower teams anymore.

Turns out La Salle didn’t need to. It had a secret weapon who shouldn’t have been so secret and closes her career as the most clutch pitcher Rhode Island has ever seen.

“Without her we probably wouldn’t be here at all,” Pallotta said. “She’s been the ace for the last four years and she always comes up when we need her and she shuts them down.”

“I just enjoyed my time with the girls. Whatever happens, happens, but we just work hard and have fun,” Vigneau said. “I couldn’t have imagined this whatsoever.”

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Rhode Island

Police investigating suspicious death in Cumberland

Published

20 hours ago

June 6, 2026

Press Room

Police investigating suspicious death in Cumberland

CUMBERLAND, R.I. (WPRI) – Police in Cumberland are investigating what officials are classifying at this time as a suspicious death.

Investigators have been on the scene at 46 E Barrow St. all day, with detectives in and out of the home.

The Rhode Island State Police sent their mobile crime lab to the scene. The entire house is taped off.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as we work to gather more information.

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Rhode Island

Here’s your Rhode Island high school sports schedule for Super Saturday

Published

1 day ago

June 6, 2026

Press Room

Here’s your Rhode Island high school sports schedule for Super Saturday

Super Saturday has arrived.

Today is the busiest day of the 2026 RIIL spring sports schedule, with championships being play at Rhode Island College and Brown University. Baseball, softball, lacrosse, volleyball and track and field athletes will all be chasing gold.

It’s a lot of keep track of, so here’s a handy schedule of the day’s events to keep your head from spinning.