6 The QUEE NS Courier • NOVEMBER 6, 2014 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com Queens Center mall to open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving BY MICHAEL SHAIN mshain@queenscourier.com No time for a second piece of pie at Thanksgiving this year. For the first time, Queens Center is going to open at 6 p.m. the night of Thanksgiving, following a trend to start Black Friday earlier every year. The move is prompted by the announcement this week that JCPenney and Macy’s are joining stores like Kmart and Walmart in being open on Thanksgiving night — getting a six-hour jump on the competition to start their first, big holiday sales. “We always opened at midnight” for those stores that wanted to get the bargain rush going in the first hours of Black Friday, said John Scaturro, head of marketing for the Elmhurst mall. “But with stores like Sears opening early, now the big players are following suit.” And since the two biggest stores in the mall are opening early, the owner of the mall, Macerich Co., has offered the chance to all the stores in the mall to open at 6 p.m. too. “We project that 70 to 80 percent of our stores will elect to open Thanksgiving The line at the Queens Center Macy’s during last year’s Black Friday. night,” Scaturro said. “Nobody is going to want to be closed in those first few hours.” Black Friday is the term used by retailers a bunch of bad years since economic In the retail trade, the trend is being for the day after Thanksgiving — crisis of 2007-8 — discovered shoppers called “Black Friday creep,” a process when people are off from work and the have had enough football and family by that began more than a decade ago when holiday shopping season officially began nightfall on Thanksgiving and are itching big-box stores tested the idea of boosting (and merchants could count on ending to get out of the house. sales by offering extraordinary bargains the day in the black). “People always seem to be in very to die-hard shoppers willing to come to But what started out as an experiment good spirits when they shop on those the stores at midnight. has taken off. Retailers — who have had days. The truth is that, on Black Friday, THE COURIER/Photo by Liam La Guerre we notice a lot of folks shopping for themselves — not for Christmas especially,” Scaturro said. “Fall and winter clothes are the big items,” he said. “Shoe stores do very well on those days — and shoes are not something people buy for holiday shopping.” WEDNESDAY, NOV. 12TH, 6:00 PM TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY AT CLOCK TOWER PLAZA 501 Gateway Drive Brooklyn NY 11239 Belt Parkway Exit 15 Erskine St. Bus Lines: B13, B83, & Q8 CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS AT FEATURING 92.3FM DJ NIKO BIG APPLE CIRCUS SOUL TIGERS MARCHING BAND BROOKLYN HIGH SCHOOL OF THE ARTS SELECT CHOIR IN-STORE HOLIDAY SHOPPING PROMOTIONS AND A SPECIAL VISIT FROM SANTA!
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