It’s only one week out until Thanksgiving, but turkey isn’t the focus of national chain stores. It’s money.
Many big companies are keeping their locations open on Thanksgiving in order to keep up with competition. Stores such as Macy’s, Target and Best Buy have decided to get an early start on the deal and open Thanksgiving day.
The earlier hours have stirred controversy among employees who have to work holiday hours because their employers are opening shop for holiday deals early.
More than 155,000 people have signed a petition asking Target to change its hours for Thanksgiving Day – and the number of signatures is increasing.
Target Communications Manager Molly Snyder told NBC San Diego, “Black Friday is one of the busiest and most competitive shopping days of the year…By opening at midnight, we are making it easier than ever to deliver on our guests wants and needs.”
Snyder said the employee who started the petition, Anthony Hardwick of Nebraska, “is not now, and has never been, scheduled to work on Thanksgiving or Black Friday at Target.”
Another movement, Respect the Bird, has taken to social media asking families to take a pledge to “not let Black Friday gobble up Thanksgiving.” The cooking website All Recipes has helped obtain about 2,200 pledges to keep Thanksgiving sacred.
Corona resident Penny Hanstad, a power user for All Recipes, said she has decided to make Thanksgiving dinner earlier this year in order for her 19-year-old grandson to go to work. More than 20 of her family members will eat early so they can all be together.
Hanstad also noticed that many supermarkets will be open on Thanksgiving Day. Hanstad said she thinks it’s sad for the people who will be forced to spend time away from their families because they have to work.
“We have all different walks of life in our family,” she said.” This is a really rough time to be bombarded with ‘you gotta buy, you gotta buy…I think consumers would still love deals if they happened on the Friday after.”
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