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Black Friday started off slowly in Santa Clara County, but quickly picked up at 9 a.m. with hundreds or thousands of shoppers flocking to some malls.
Despite warnings from the county that health orders designed to minimize the spread of the coronavirus would be strictly enforced, crowds of people – all appearing to wear masks – have arrived at the Great Mall in Milpitas in search of bargains.
Christmas music played over the mall’s loudspeakers, the cheerful notes contrasted with the strict security measures. Seating was closed, hand sanitizer stations were everywhere, and some stores with external entrances had blocked their internal entrances.
Leonardo Morazan stood in line at the Nike store in the Great Mall with his daughter. He has six grandchildren – five boys and a girl – and wanted gifts for them.
“I knew there wouldn’t be a lot of people here today,” he says.
But the mall was slowly filling up as he spoke. There were more than a dozen online shoppers behind him in a mall that had already hosted at least several hundred people in just a few hours.
Nadia Seniuta, manager of the Great Mall, declined to say how many people visited the mall on Friday. But the crowds were very visible, including many loaded with purchases who didn’t seem in a rush to leave. Stores like Nike always had around 20 people lined up in the hallway.
Inder Singh, owner of Noble Luggage, a travel supplies store in the Great Mall, said he saw around 40% fewer people pass through his store compared to last year – in part, he thought. it, because the pandemic was keeping people in their homes.
“Nobody travels. Usually when the mall opens during Black Friday there is so much rush, but when we opened at 6 am there was hardly anyone here, ”he said.
Across town at Eastridge Center, another San Jose mall, some shoppers waited overnight to snag a PlayStation 5 from GameStop. As the sun rose, a representative from the mall appeared, handed out numbered slips of paper, and told shoppers to come back a few hours later.
Macy’s workers, meanwhile, already had two hours of work. The store opened at 5 a.m. and at 7 a.m. Black Friday shoppers were arriving at a steady pace.
“As a kid we didn’t have a lot, so Black Friday is always a shopping spree,” said Mayra Ortega, 25, who came to Macy’s in Eastridge with her partner, Daniel Olivares. Their arms were filled with household items, sheets and clothing.
Ortega and Olivares decided to go shopping as long as it wasn’t too crowded. “We were like, ‘We can check and if there are a lot of people, we can just go home.’”
In Santana Row, an upscale shopping mall in western San Jose, Black Friday crowds seemed rare. Around the 10 a.m. opening, shoppers milled the sidewalks, bought coffee at outdoor cafes, and waited outside to enter shops in the company of an ornate giant camel statue. of twinkling lights.
Connie Yi, owner of Boutique Harajuku in Santana Row, said things were “pretty quiet,” but that didn’t surprise her.
“Normally I have customers waiting outside for Black Friday, but this year not that many,” she said. “It’s just the pandemic, there is nothing I can do. You just need to run your business one day at a time. It is certainly not easy, but you just learn to survive under the circumstances.
Officials in Santa Clara County, where the daily number of cases now often exceeds 400, said they issued 76 “notices of violation” by noon – many to companies that have not submitted and released reports. updated social distancing protocols. The county had said earlier in the week that it would step up its compliance efforts to ensure that Black Friday does not become a mass-market event.
“Overall, our team has noted few large crowds so far,” Michael Balliet, director of community and business engagement, said in a statement.
Santa Clara County, along with five other Bay Area counties, is in the purple level of the state’s reopening plan. This means that all retail businesses except stand-alone grocers are limited to 25% of their capacity. County compliance inspections are expected to continue throughout the weekend.
Michael Low, a spokesperson for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, said no citation had been issued on behalf of the sheriff’s office at 2 p.m. for companies that had broken safety rules such as the density limits.
Many Black Friday shoppers bought freebies on their computers – a safe strategy, but one that hurt malls. Some officials, including those of Marin, urged people to buy local.
Bryan Mena and Nora Mishanec are editors of the San Francisco Chronicle. Emails: [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @NMishanec, @bpmena
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