BOSTON, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Retailers in Massachusetts know the rules on Black Friday sales, the state' attorney general's office said.
"Retailers know the law and they are required to follow those laws," Brad Puffer, spokesman for Attorney General Martha Coakley, told Tuesday's Boston Globe.
The confusion for some stems from 17th century laws in the state that prohibit any sales on Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day, the newspaper said.
Those laws "are clear as mud," said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.
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"We've reminded some of the members informally that you have to be careful about the opening," Hurst said.
Confusing or clear, retailers are pressuring the state to allow them to open on Thanksgiving to at least prepare for the Black Friday shopping event, which signals for some the start of the Christmas shopping season.
It is named Black Friday, because it starts the season in which retailers' books typically move into the black for the year.
Stores in other states allow workers to put in some hours on Thanksgiving. That way, they are prepared to swing open their doors just after midnight for the big event.
The laws in prohibiting work on Thanksgiving in Massachusetts are a hangover from Puritan times, like rarely enforced laws prohibiting dancing on Sunday, the Globe said.
But laws that once had religious overtones are now seen as protective of workers' rights.
"The spirit of the law and intent is to give people a day off, and that is why this state has exercised that authority in the way it has," said Patricia DeAngelis, general counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards.
