LOS ANGELES -- Southern California operators and consumers took things in stride last week as an earthquake aftershock rolled through the area, registering 5.3 on the Richter scale. "Everyone rolled with the punches -- and with the earth," Darius Anderson, vice president of government relations for Food 4 Less Supermarkets, La Habra, told SN. The temblor was an aftershock to the Jan. 17 earthquake that registered 6.8 on the Richter scale. However, unlike that quake -- and most previous ones -- which struck early in the morning, the March 20 aftershock hit on a Sunday afternoon at 1:20 p.m., when supermarkets were teeming with customers. "Most shoppers remained in the stores," Anderson said. "The psyche in southern California seems to be that everyone is somewhat tolerant of these aftershocks." Food 4 Less lost less than $100,000 worth of merchandise, Anderson said, and a couple of stores near the quake's epicenter in the San Fernando Valley had to shut down for a couple of hours.
