Early Bird Specials : Shoppers Battle Weather, Crowds to Uphold Post-Thanksgiving Tradition

Ventura County shoppers braved chilly weather, rain-slicked roads and packed parking lots Friday to cram stores from Thousand Oaks to Ojai, lured by storewide sales and special one-day discounts.

The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. But merchants across the county said business is brisker this year than last.

“It’s a lot more this year,” said Cynthia Howard, manager of the Toys R Us in Thousand Oaks, as she surveyed the adults lining up to buy Barbie dolls, Power Rangers and other items popular with children. “With Hanukkah so early, our sales have been way up.”

The Jewish holiday begins at sundown Sunday, early compared to other years when it has often fallen in middle or late December.

Besides the early buying of Hanukkah presents, store managers said the improving economy has apparently given many county residents more money to spend and more confidence to spend it.

Ojai merchant Jeff Rains said sales at his family’s local Rains department store were strong Friday, although not booming. “I think people know (the economy) is not going to crash, but they are not going full-steam ahead.”

Other store managers said their sales were up as much as 10% compared to the same day last year.

Ventura County merchants also said they are benefiting from a continuing influx of shoppers from the San Fernando Valley, where some department stores have remained closed since the Northridge earthquake in January.

Shoppers who venture out the day after Thanksgiving always must contend with crowds of fellow consumers.

But Friday presented other irritations.

Motorists were driving bumper-to-bumper on the northbound Ventura Freeway between Camarillo and Ventura during much of the day as a steady drizzle slowed already heavy holiday traffic.

The chilly rain also soaked the shopping bags of some people darting between stores at the new Oxnard Factory Outlet Mall. And it turned to mud a nearby dirt lot where bargain-hungry shoppers parked their cars after the paved lot filled up.

Despite the nasty weather, cousins Stephanie Toscano of Lompoc and Xenia Toscano of Oxnard said nothing could have kept them from shopping Friday. “It wasn’t a question of if we would go,” Stephanie said.

Still, the cousins said, they would have to restrain their shopping ardor.

As Xenia, a Ventura College student, put it: “We have a low cash flow.”

For some families, hitting the stores the day after Thanksgiving is as much a holiday tradition as getting together to eat turkey.

“This is a ritual for us,” said Lisa Pope, a computer sales manager from Orange County who went to The Oaks mall early Friday with her mother, Thousand Oaks resident Jackie Colleran, and her sister-in-law from San Jose.

“We leave the kids with their dads,” Pope said.

“And take the credit cards,” said Pope’s sister-in-law, Cary Colleran.

Jackie Colleran said she and family members have shopped on the day after Thanksgiving every year since 1980. “It sort of puts us in the mood for the start of the Christmas season.”

For many others, shopping is less family fun than serious business.

While most stores at The Oaks opened at 8 a.m. Friday, JCPenney unlocked its doors at 7:30 to try to beat the competition. More than 100 shoppers were lined up outside by the time the store opened, clerks said.

Barbara Singer left her home in Ventura about 6:20 a.m. to get to The Oaks early.

“I want to get some good buys,” said Singer, a therapist. “I’d rather have first choice than second or third. Plus, I can do my walking in the mall and not have to go outside in the cold.”

Getting to the malls early gives shoppers first dibs on sale goods and allows them to take advantage of the early-bird discounts offered by some stores.

Perhaps even more important, it gives shoppers a better chance at a parking space.

By 11 a.m. Friday, motorists arriving at The Oaks had begun the holiday-season ritual of finding parking spaces by driving behind people as they walked from the mall toward their cars.

The hassle of parking is one reason why some consumers avoid malls--particularly on the busiest shopping day of the year.

People strolling in and out of the quaint boutiques in downtown Ojai on Friday said they had no intention of leaving their idyllic shopping quarter for the mobbed malls in Ventura or Thousand Oaks.

“I’m not going anywhere else today,” Ojai resident Teri Mettala said. “I don’t like to shop when everybody else does.”

As Ojai shopper Cheryl Simms said: “It’s too crazy the day after Thanksgiving.”