Blue laws keep doors closed on Thursday

PROVIDENCE, RI (WPRI) - Many big box retailers like Target, Walmart, and K-Mart are opening late Thanksgiving night, giving shoppers an earlier than ever start to Black Friday.

But those doors will remain closed until midnight in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, thanks to so-called "Blue Laws."

The Rhode Island Retail Federation hopes state lawmakers change the law in the near future.

"If you look around the state of Rhode Island on Thanksgiving Day restaurants, bar rooms, bowling alleys, movies, convenience stores, everyone will be open but the retailers, and so we feel that takes our competitiveness away from us," says Paul DeRoche, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Retail Federation.

Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine, are the only three states in the nation that have blue laws preventing retailers from opening on Thanksgiving.