Southside Mall Takes Stand To Save

Thanksgiving Holiday For Families

by LIBBY CUDMORE • HOMETOWN ONEONTA

Edition of Friday, Dec. 5, 2014

Southside Mall manager Luisa Montanti was already thinking ahead of this season’s hottest trend.

No, it wasn’t a new toy or the latest fashion – it was taking a stance against opening the Southside Mall on Thanksgiving Day.

“We weren’t seeing a bump in additional traffic; it was the same traffic spread over three days,” she said. “All the managers of the stores met and we decided not to open Thursday night.”

She was nervous about the decision at first; last Thanksgiving, people stood in line in the bitter cold for the mall’s 8 p.m. to midnight opening. But her decision was bolstered by a poll on the WSRK website showed that 89.66 percent of respondents opposing starting Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day.

“People want to stay home, but companies are forcing them to go out because shoppers need those deep discounts,” she said. “And it’s splitting up families because people have to work.”

While JC Penney, OfficeMax and Dick’s Sporting Goods, all which have separate entrances, were open Thursday evening, the rest of the mall remained closed until 5 a.m. Friday morning.

TJ Maxx, one of the mall’s anchor stores, has always been a strong supporter of giving their employees Thanksgiving off, and with their support, Montanti was able to keep her employees home with their families too. “If they were opening, we might have been forced to open,” she said.

And it was a hunch that was right on target with the rest of the country. Nationwide, the Black Friday numbers were down as more shoppers went online or stalled against the crush of the holiday shopping season. “People were thanking me for taking a stance,” she said.

It’s also, in part, because people are making a concerted effort to shop locally. “We’re a great mall because we offer a great amount of merchandise,” she said.

As a result, Montanti said, even the earliest of shoppers were in good spirits on Friday morning. The majority of stores reported equal sales to 2013, and Bath and Body Works reported an increase in sales over last year’s Thanksgiving open.

“We had excellent traffic,” she said. “Some of our stores had real gains in sales because our customers were supportive of that decision.”