Retailers to defy blue laws

Electronics retailer CompUSA Inc. and Asian grocer Super 88 are planning to open on Thanksgiving Day in Massachusetts, apparently in defiance of the state's 17th-century blue laws that prohibit most merchants from doing business on the holiday.

CompUSA is the latest retailer to challenge the state's rigid rules penned by the Puritans in what some believe could open the floodgates to major revisions in the law. Last year the state attorney general's office issued stern reprimands and threatened criminal charges to retailers who planned to open on Thanksgiving.

Police ended up closing Super 88's Quincy store on Thanksgiving, but according to store employees, the grocer intends to operate several stores during tomorrow's holiday.

"The blue laws are antiquated and silly," said David Lannon , North Atlantic regional president for Whole Foods Market Inc. "Customers want us to be open and people lead such busy lives that they'll shop when it's convenient."

Whole Foods, which is opening tomorrow in most states where it operates, tried to get permission in Massachusetts but state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly rejected its bid for the second year in a row. The health-oriented supermarket chain had plans last year to keep its Massachusetts stores open for Thanksgiving until rival Shaw's Supermarket learned of the plans and wrote a letter to Reilly citing the blue laws and requesting him to halt the holiday openings.

"The state said they would shut down any store," Lannon said. "We're not going to break the law."

The CompUSA effort comes as a growing number of merchants across the country have started opening their doors on Thanksgiving in an attempt to get a jumpstart on the holiday shopping season. BJ's, the Natick warehouse chain, is operating for the first time on Thanksgiving in almost every other state where it has stores except its native Massachusetts. Wrentham Village Premium Outlets is waiting just one minute after Thanksgiving to launch a "Midnight Madness" shopping event at its center.

"This could be the beginning of a real discussion to rewrite the blue laws," said Jon Hurst , the president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. "The best thing to do is just blow it up and rewrite the laws to current reality and what consumers want."

The state's blue laws date back to the 1600s, designed to prevent colonists from straying from church to drink or make business transactions on the Sabbath. The legal relic includes many rules that are rarely enforced, including dancing on Sundays.

The strictest laws were aimed at protecting Sundays, and even those have eroded over time. Over the past three decades, the state Legislature has allowed stores to open on Veteran s Day and Columbus Day and even permitted package stores to sell alcohol on Sundays. A ballot question in 1994 allowed stores to open on Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day -- the busiest shopping days of the summer. The blue laws don't apply to exempt stores, including pharmacies and small food stores with less than three employees at a given time.

The biggest resistance to changing the blue laws has involved protecting employees from feeling pressured to work on holidays. But retailers and merchants have pressed the issue, saying they are losing business to neighboring states and trying to meet consumer demand.

For CompUSA, this is the first year the electronics company is opening from 9 p.m. to midnight at stores across the country, including ones in Brighton and Woburn.

The Dallas chain received one-day permits from the local police departments, but state officials say those permits are meaningless without first getting statewide approval from the Division of Occupational Safety.

Linnea Walsh , a spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, which oversees occupational safety, said the state had not changed its long-standing practice to not issue statewide approval of local permits for retail stores subject to state law.

That's not what some local officials think. Woburn Police Chief Philip Mahoney , who approved a one-day permit for CompUSA, said: "Massachusetts has basically done away with the blue laws. There's local control over this now and I look out for what's going to negatively affect the neighborhood. I'm not going to stop these stores from opening."

Meredith Baumann , a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, which enforces violations of the blue laws, said, "We're confident that all retailers are aware of the law and expected to comply with it. We will certainly review complaints as we receive them."

Baumann declined to comment on whether the agency would send warning letters to CompUSA or Super 88.

"It's really confusing with all these laws," said Karen James , a CompUSA spokeswoman. "We're under the impression we're all buttoned up."

Super 88 officials did not return calls seeking comment.

Consumers are divided on the issue. "It is a disgrace that retailers would want to open their doors on our national day of giving thanks. It is clearly part of a larger systemic problem with our country that retailing has become such a large part of our life that we can't take time out of year to sit back, with family and friends, and take stock," said Steve Gordon, 34, of Norton. "You can go shopping on Friday. Take a day off."

Not so, says Jada Baez, 36, while shopping yesterday at the Super 88 in Dorchester. "It would be good for a store to be open on Thanksgiving, even if it's only for a few hours. I would go, I always forget something."

Jenn Abelson can be reached at abelson@globe.com. Globe correspondent Rose Sopko contributed to this report.