Not-so-black Friday
Despite surging pandemic, holiday shoppers still have plenty of options
It’s Black Friday in the midst of a record-setting pandemic that has a lot of people staying home and avoiding social contacts to reduce the spread of COVID-19, which has spiked in recent weeks in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties, prompting public health authorities to place both counties in the most restrictive category for “widespread risk” of infection on a state Blueprint for a Safer Economy.
Regardless, plenty of Mother Lode residents and visitors are going to take their chances today, masked up or not in downtown Sonora and East Sonora, and they are going to shop for deals and seek out their favorite decadent Black Friday meals to fuel their shopping appetites.
Some people wonder when the day after Thanksgiving first became known as Black Friday. Historians say it started in the 1950s among Philadelphia police officers, who had to work long shifts and cope with crushes of rabid shoppers and visitors who arrived the day before the annual Army-navy football game, staged in Philadelphia the Saturday after Thanksgiving, first on Nov. 29, 1890, and annually since 1930.
From the 1930s to 1950s, so many people came to Philadelphia for the big game that railroads put a temporary train station close to Municipal Stadium to accommodate up to 40-plus trainloads of football fans and other visitors. That didn’t appease the hardworking Philadelphia police, who continued to refer to the day after Thanksgiving as Black Friday, and Philadelphia business owners began using it by the early 1960s.
The term Black Friday took hold across the United States decades later, in the late 1980s, writer and editor Sarah Pruitt reports in an article for the website History.com. Speculations and theories that the term originated from business owners who marked the Friday after Thanksgiving as the day they went from red to black in profits have been discounted.
With the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing and new record-high numbers of daily cases recorded this week in Tuolumne County, throughout California, and across the United States, it’s unlikely shoppers this Black Friday will match the intensity of previous Black Fridays, with real violence documented among shoppers in incidents that have resulted in at least 12 deaths and more than 100 injuries since 2006, according to the website Blackfridaydeathcount.com.
Online retailers like Amazon, ebay, and Best Buy are again offering all manner of discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers, leaving physical retailers and small, locally owned businesses to find ways of competing in a landscape reshaped by the coronavirus.
The pandemic has also forced the City of Sonora to cancel events that overlap with Black Friday typically draw shoppers to the downtown area, including the annual Christmas Parade and Santa’s Workshop. The parade has been staged on the Friday after Thanksgiving since 1984.
Numerous businesses in downtown Sonora and East Sonora will be open today. Some will offer Black Friday specials, like the gift-card deal and pizza-margarita combo at Emberz on South Washington Street.
Emberz manager Victoria Clanton said anyone who buys a $50 gift card will automatically get $75 on each card, and anyone who purchases a wood-fired pizza gets a free house margarita to wash it down. The restaurant offers takeout and outside dining and staff plan to have the business open 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. for Black Friday.
Saturday is also known as Small Business Saturday and expected to be another busy shopping day in downtown Sonora despite the ongoing pandemic.
The Sonora Chamber of Commerce is touting a campaign to promote Saturday evening shopping downtown called “There’s No Place Like Sonora For The Holidays.” Participating downtown stores will remain open 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays beginning this Saturday to Dec. 19, Katie Dunn, the Sonora Chamber of Commerce president, said.
The chamber is partnering with KAAD 103.5 Radio to promote their campaign. Free gift wrapping will be offered at Sonora Inn, where shoppers can show receipts “and we’ll gift wrap their items for free,” Dunn said.
The national chain big box stores in Sonora are expected to be open today. Employees at the Sonora outlets for Walmart and Lowes typically refer questions from news media to their corporate headquarters.
To compete for Black Friday dollars in East Sonora, the Famous Footwear store at The Junction shopping center will be open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today with Black Friday specials including buy one pair of shoes and get a second pair of shoes for half off. In addition, anyone who spends $75 on Black Friday gets $10 off, a store employee said.
National spokespersons for Walmart say their stores will offer customers the option to collect their online Black Friday orders via curbside pickups.
Today, according to national corporate spokespersons, Walmart stores will open at 5 a.m. and, if there are people waiting to get in, customers at each store will be asked to form a single line to enter. Employees will hand out sanitized shopping carts and will remind customers to wear masks when entering the store.
Walmart will also limit the number of customers in the store to 20 percent capacity and will direct customers to shop down the right-hand side of aisles. Lowe’s is offering numerous Black Friday specials online,including discounted face coverings, face shields, and disinfectants.