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Oh, Shopping Spree

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By LAURA FRAZIER and TOM BRENNAN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 1, 2007

BRANDON - Just after sunrise the day after Thanksgiving at Westfield Brandon mall, Leah Ciccone burst out of Sears into the parking lot, looked to the sky and shouted, "Oh my God, it's daylight!"

Juggling shopping bags and fumbling for her car keys, the Mango resident praised Sears staff members for keeping order in the store, which opened to a brisk crowd at 5 a.m. It was a welcome contrast, Ciccone said, to the chaotic scene early that morning at Toys R Us in Brandon, where bargain hunters began lining up at 1 a.m.

"It was awful. Hundreds of people were lined up outside the store, and there had to be hundreds more parked in their cars, but there was absolutely no crowd control," she said.

When the store opened at 5 a.m., Ciccone said, the crowd rushed the building. Her friend Roger Grugel said he was knocked to the ground by overzealous shoppers.

Inside the store, Grugel said, "people were running each other over with buggies. It was crazy."

Despite the lack of shopping manners, mall officials see harbingers of good fortune in the post-Thanksgiving shopping hordes.

"All the retailers seem very happy with what the weekend brought," said Dawn Richter, Westfield's marketing manager. "Compared with last year, we expect it to be a strong season."

Before daybreak on so-called "Black Friday," - the day retailers hoped to see their bottom lines turn from red to black - traffic began to back up in front of Target's full parking lot near the State Road 60 mall entrance. Throughout the day, when traffic threatened to back up onto the busy artery, Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies temporarily blocked drivers from leaving the mall at S.R. 60 and instructed them instead to exit at Causeway Boulevard.

It is a maneuver shoppers can expect each weekend throughout the holiday shopping season.

"We are trying to reroute traffic so it doesn't back up on State Road 60," Richter said. "We are trying to train shoppers to use our other entrances."

Mall access also is available from Providence Road north of Lumsden Road.

Detours, deputies directing traffic, removal of a couple of stop signs on Brandon Town Center Drive and other traffic tactics seemed to work.

"It was remarkably unremarkable," sheriff's Capt. Robert Spooner said of the post-Thanksgiving traffic. "There were a lot of people, but no issues."

But Spooner will wait to declare victory over traffic tribulations.

"We made it through the biggest rush, but let's see what Christmas Eve and the post-Christmas returns bring," he said.

At 7:30 a.m. inside the mall, the day-after-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy claimed its first victims. Dozens of men retired to easy chairs to relax as their wives or significant others shopped. Foot traffic was dense, but few strollers or children were seen.

Vanessa Dallman of Plant City has shopped on the day after Thanksgiving every year since 1989. Dallman and her sister Terri Slone thought it was a good excuse to get out of the house for the day while their husbands watched the kids.

"The kids are all grown up now, but we're still at it," Dallman said.

Dallman's and Slone's teenage daughters joined the shopping trip this year, along with their grandmother, Donna Harris. The women wore "Shop 'Til We Drop" T-shirts to commemorate their 18th annual post-Thanksgiving shopping trip.

"So far, it's been the best Black Friday ever," Dallman said. "There are a lot of great sales."

They were the type of shoppers Richter said merchants expected.

"I was shocked at the number of people at the center," she said. "But those are the people who love to be out shopping after Thanksgiving and getting the good deals."

Sandy Neel and Colleen Strom of Brandon said their morning got off to a rough start. At 7:45 a.m., after waiting in line for more than an hour to make a purchase at JC Penney, the friends collapsed into club chairs at Starbucks to take a breath.

"They were seriously understaffed," Neel said.

"We're a little bummed," added Strom, "but after we have coffee, we'll go back out and try again."

Outside Starbucks, Norma Encarnacio, with her sister Lyn and husband, Rey, reported a positive shopping experience. They were impressed with traffic flow in and around the mall and the Wal-Mart in Valrico.

"We started out at Wal-Mart for toys at 4 a.m., then came to the mall to go to the electronics stores. We had no problems. This was the best Black Friday yet," Encarnacio said.

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523 or lfrazier@tampatrib.com.

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