Ames merchants have joined the pledge to refuse sales of tabloids that contain photographs of Princess Diana’s crash.

Hy-Vee food store corporate offices announced this week no tabloid newspapers would be sold in the chain grocery stores if they contained photographs of the crash.

The Ames Hy-Vee store, along with Target and Cub Food Store have all pledged to refuse sales of the tabloids.

The controversy stems from photographs that were taken by the paparazzi at the time of the crash. Since the crash occurred late last Saturday night, many people have blamed the paparazzi for causing the accident.

Merchants across the world have also stated they will refuse to sell any tabloid newspapers which publish the photos.

“It’s very rare for Hy-Vee to issue directives from the corporate office,” company spokeswoman Ruth Mitchell said.

“But in this case, the public outcry was so widespread that we felt we had to listen to what our customers were saying,” she said.

Mitchell said the Hy-Vee corporate office received a number of calls Wednesday from customers who asked for the store to ban the tabloids. She said they also had inquiries from the media after other chains instituted similar bans.

The executive committee of the Hy-Vee board of directors voted Wednesday to tell the 173 Hy-Vee supermarkets in seven states and the 24 Drug Town stores in Iowa to not sell any tabloids that publish the photos.

Representatives from Hy-Vee, 3800 Lincoln Way, and Drug Town, 500 Main Street, in Ames said the local stores will be complying with this directive.

Jim Lehman, food store manager of Hy-Vee, said his store is not going to sell issues with the accident photos in them.

“We haven’t seen any come through yet, so we’re just kind of waiting to see what happens,” he said.

Mitchell said the committee agreed stores would not sell tabloids containing photos “that would exploit the accident or the accident victims.”

Mitchell said the committee will be monitoring tabloid coverage to make judgement calls on which tabloids should be pulled from Hy-Vee’s stands, and is asking individual stores to monitor the publications.

Mitchell called the tabloid directive “a future ban,” because tabloids covering the accident have not come to print yet.

Tabloids generally print over the weekend, she said, so accident photos will not become an issue until next week.

“It may not even become an issue then,” Mitchell said, because the major U.S. tabloids have said they will not buy or publish accident photographs.

Editors of the National Enquirer and the Globe have said they will not publish photos of the crash.

The Sept. 9 issue of the National Enquirer has an article about Princess Diana’s romance.

“We’ve had some customers object to that [issue] and we’re leaving that up to stores,” Mitchell said. Some stores in the chain have chosen to pull the issue from shelves, she said.

Mike Lee, manager of Cub Food Store, 3121 Grand Ave., said although they haven’t had any directives about the tabloids, they will follow the same pledge.

“We pulled some yesterday, as a matter of fact,” Lee said, referring to the issue of the National Enquirer with the article about the princess’ romance.

Holly Gelner, a store manager of Target, 620 Lincoln Way, said Target has been pulling the Sept. 9 issue of National Enquirer chain-wide, and will consider pulling any that contain “distasteful pictures of the scene.”

The Ames Target has gone beyond that. “We pulled anything that had any sort of an article regarding [Princess Diana] and her personal life,” Gelner said.

So far, Mitchell said feedback about the directive has been entirely positive.

“People are very appreciative that they don’t have to worry about going into Hy-Vee and being confronted with those photos,” she said.

Hy-Vee grocery stores are located in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota.