By Monica Green/features@trcle.com
Shoppers woke up early Friday morning in hopes of catching special deals at the stores.
At 15 minutes until 5 in the morning, the line at Target in Burleson stretched the length of the shopping center toward S.W. Wilshire, curved around the corner, extended to the end of the buildings and wound through the parking lot.
The first person in line arrived at 6:30 p.m. Thursday. A bit farther down the line, a family said they took up their position at 11 p.m. Thursday, and just a bit farther down, several people said they came at 1 a.m. Friday.
“One guy came at 9 last night,” said Robert Segovia, Target store manager. “He had a tent and everything.”
The parking lot in front of the store was full, with cars circling, the drivers hoping to find a closer space.
“We had about 700 people in line when we opened the doors at 5 a.m.,” Segovia said.
Late comers — those who showed up a few minutes before the scheduled 5 a.m. opening, gathered in front of the store, where Segovia told them they would have to either go to the end of the line or wait until everyone in line had entered the store.
One woman expressed the group’s sentiment: “Why would I go all the way down there to get in line? I’ll just wait here.”
Calinia Dale of Burleson said she woke up at 3:30 a.m. to start shopping.
“We went to Walmart first and stood in line an hour and 15 minutes before we could get the stuff we wanted,” she said.
She said they waited an hour to check out at Walmart. The checkout lines at Target went to the back of the store and wrapped around to the electronics department. Dale waited about 30 minutes in line to checkout there.
Electronics were the hot item for Black Friday sales, and what most shoppers were after.
“Electronics. Wii games,” said Heather Messimer of Weatherford when asked what deals she was hoping to find. “I came all the way here to shop. Never going to do that again.”
At Walmart, the parking lot was full at about 5:15 a.m., as were the parking lots for the shopping area that is situated to the southwest of the store.
Some shoppers parked across the street in the Walgreen’s lot and walked over to the store.
Most of the major retail outlets in Burleson are located along Interstate 35W, stretching up into the Fort Worth city limits.
The lots for stores such as JC Penney, Kohl’s and Academy, though not as packed as Target and Walmart, held as many cars as an average Saturday afternoon, but the lot at Best Buy was jammed, with some shoppers parking across the street in the McAlister Square and walking over.
News editor Michael O’Connor contributed to
this article.
