Shoppers line up before dawn for deals

[Doorbuster shoppers in Spring Hill wait in a line that wrapped around the building for Circuit City's Black Friday deals. Will Vragovic | Times]
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ST. PETERSBURG -- There were big lines at the 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. door-buster sales at plenty of stores in the Tyrone Mall area, but the lines were not as long as they've been in past years.

People waited in the pre-dawn chill to get in to JCPenny and Kohl's at 4 a.m., and lines wrapped the buildings at Toys R Us, Circuit City and Best Buy by 4:30 a.m. Lines also snaked into Sears and Macy's, and there was a mob at Old Navy.

Early morning bargain hunters said prices were cut deeper than last year. But Seminole plumber Michael Deremer and his wife, Julie, couldn't find anything worth buying at Kohl's, so they went to Best Buy in hopes of scoring a laptop for their son, who is a Marine stationed in San Diego.

It wasn't just the selection that sent them elsewhere. An over-eager shopper rammed a cart into Deremer's leg, diminishing his shopping enthusiasm -- and there was much there to begin with. The Deremers are trying to spend less this year than last year.

"It's bad out there," he said of the economy. "My third quarter was only half the second quarter."

Mark Albright and Kim Wilmath, Times Staff Writers