America’s Last Ban on Sunday Shopping | Hacker News Reader

America’s Last Ban on Sunday Shopping

newyorker.com

43 pointsdanso47 comments

The fact that different municipalities, cities, and states have different laws are not, as NYer suggests, evidence that 'modernity' has not come to these places.

Part of the glory and endurance of the United States is its dual republic[1]. It oxygenates conflicts and allows for experimentation. The modern left dislikes it and prefers federal power, but if I had to take a bet on whether the United States will exist in 500 years, it'd be premised in large part on the exquisitely balanced dual sovereignty of state and federal governments.

[1] http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_45.html

> The modern left dislikes it and prefers federal power....

I'd say rather that both left and right have a complicated relationship with the federal system; I know plenty of lefties that are gratified, in the face of national pushback against their preferred initiatives, that they can at least make progress at the state level. And we have all seen evidence of even the most states-rights-rah-rah righties trying to make use of federal prohibitions and requirements when they thought that the national Zeitgeist was flowing in their direction.

I'm not calling anyone a hypocrite over this, by the way, and I think most anyone with a view on this would cop to a somewhat nuanced view if prodded.

Not that I disagree, but which are the "most states-rights-rah-rah righties trying to make use of federal prohibitions and requirements when they thought that the national Zeitgeist was flowing in their direction"?

Who voted for the federal measures to twist the states into raising the drinking age to 21?

One example from a few years back was DOMA, which said that the federal government couldn't recognise same-sex marriages even if a state performed them (as they started to do a few years later).

Another is No Child Left Behind, a Republican-sponsored measure (though like DOMA it did receive bipartisan support) that forced a lot of specific educational policy on various states that weren't very happy about it, but acceded because the alternative was federal defunding.

Another is various efforts involving abortion and, lately, contraception; I hesitate to get too deep on specifics lest I derail the thread, but right-wing efforts there have not been confined to the state level. (Nor have left-wing efforts, obviously.)

Exactly, if we take this assertion, then we'd have to say that Germany had been very backward till recently when most stores were not open beyond 6PM[1] and people had to rush out of work by 4PM to buy their groceries. Thankfully, as far as I understand it, that has been relaxed over the last few years.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladenschlussgesetz

Germany used to be more modern in the 19th century, when they didn't have a Ladenschlussgesetz as restrictive as what the 20th century saw.

I think you're reading way too much into the rhetorical touches in the article. There's an interesting contradiction that one of the busiest shopping areas in the nation also being the only place left with a wide-ranging Sunday shopping ban. That's really what this article is about.

It's not about the fact that municipalities can have different laws, which is not unique to the United States, and I'm curious if you have evidence that "the modern left dislikes" the fact that cities and states can have varying laws. I don't have that impression, but it does make for a convenient straw man.

The left and the right both support state and local experimentation when it suits their desired outcome and they both support national power when it suits their desired outcome. The political parties may pay lip service to political philosophy, but in practice they take advantage of whatever philosophical argument works best for the outcome they wish to achieve. See: slavery, fugitive slave laws, segregation, voting rights, same sex marriage, marijuana legalization, abortion, labor organization, union busting, immigration, environmental protection, consumer protection, universal health care...

So you'd bet against? Because the balance between state and federal power has been on the decline for at least 200 years, and is essentially gone now. (Total federal power.) A republic if you can keep it, but, oops, we couldn't.

One point not mentioned in the article: Sales Tax.

Clothing is fully tax exempt in New Jersey. Bergen County is in very close proximity to NYC and plenty of people make the drive over to NJ (or take one of the buses from Port Authority Bus Terminal to Garden State Plaza) to save on sales tax, and the malls in Bergen County have pretty much every major brand that has a presence on Madison Avenue, so it's easy to save a pretty penny by going to NJ and purchase clothes. One of the big fears is that allowing Sunday shopping would increase traffic due to these shoppers.

It's worth nothing that clothing under $110 per item (or pair for shoes, etc) are exempt from NY state and NYC sales taxes.

... and I realized after editing time expired that I wrote "it's worth nothing" instead of "it's worth noting". I sound so pessimistic now.

I grew up in the area. I don't think many New Yorkers come to Bergen County for the shopping. It would probably take about 2 hours to get to Garden State Plaza and require the subway and a bus. A much more convenient choice would be the Woodbury Commons as there are express buses from the city that take you to these large outlet malls. I imagine they service a lot of New Yorkers as well as tourists.

I just don't think that people realize the true economic consequences of forbidding commerce on one day a week. No one wants to work on Sunday, or most other days for that matter. Nor do people want the traffic. What these people don't think about is the fact that not having the luxury to shop when you want hurts those that have a busy schedule or those that would like to to work on that day.

It's crazy to think the bar for outlawing something is so low.

I used to date a model who spent $5-10k a month on shoes and clothes. Saving sales tax could save a lot. Not that it would be saved, just spent on other things, of course.

NYC != Manhattan. We grew up in Queens and did a lot of shopping in the route 17 area. Long ago, you used to be able to avoid some sales tax on cars as well.

Hell, even today I know folks who'll hit the Apple Store in a low/no tax state like NH or Delaware on the way back from vacation.

Personally, I liked the Sunday bans and reduced hours. So much of the retail workforce is part time, and that respite on Sunday (when malls close at 6) is appreciated by most.

I can see why some people might enjoy a collective day of rest, but that's no justifiable reason to make it illegal for people who don't care about that to buy and sell goods. Not everyone has the same 9-5 M-F week schedule. It's not like you can't just close up on Sunday if you want, anyway.

It's a game theory thing. It's more efficient if we all shop during a limited time and the retail workers then go home. However, if one shop is open when the other is not then people stop restricting their purchasing times and go to the open shop, forcing the competitor to also be open all the time. End result is lots of retail workers wasting time while waiting for customers around the clock.

> It's a game theory thing. It's more efficient if we all shop during a limited time and the retail workers then go home.

Depends on what you want to optimize / what the bottleneck is.

If you have your shops open around the clock, you can use the real estate more efficiently.

I wonder how that plays out in the internet (Amazon) age? I do most of my retail shopping on the weekends. Cut out 50% of my available shopping time, and it's just another incentive to buy online.

It depends on the area, available work places, available workers, etc.

In some areas it's going to be as you say - if you want you can close up on Sunday. In other areas it means that lots of people want any kind of work and huge retail places will offer it - of course you have to work extra hours and every weekend. They can do it, because if you don't take the job, the next person will, because they need to.

The interesting alternative I've seen is limited trading hours on the weekend for shops over the size of X m sq. So you still can buy what you need, just not at the mall.

Limiting competition has other effects as well. Where I grew up, all of the car dealers had the same hours, that were practically bankers hours. The hours were so restrictive that it was literally hard to shop around at multiple dealers within a finite time period, if you worked a regular job. It was rumored, and reported in the papers, that a dealer who violated the rule would have their lot vandalized.

> [...], that were practically bankers hours.

I wonder when was the last time that bankers had bankers hours.

The 1st Amendment applies to states via the 14th Amendment. I don't get why states and counties are allowed to have religious laws. Of course, it's a long standing double standard that Christian laws are allowed. I'd hope if someone took this to the Supreme Court that these laws would be struck down.

That said, I fully support privately recognized religious days or "personal sabbaths".

This has been tested in the Supreme Court, McGowan v. Maryland:

"The proponents of Sunday closing legislation are no longer exclusively representatives of religious interests. Recent New Jersey Sunday legislation was supported by labor groups and trade associations, Note, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 730-731; modern English Sunday legislation was promoted by the National Federation of Grocers and supported by the National Chamber of Trade, the Drapers' Chamber of Trade, and the National Union of Shop Assistants. 308 Parliamentary Debates, Commons 2158-2159."

"However, it is equally true that the "Establishment" Clause does not ban federal or state regulation of conduct whose reason or effect merely happens to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some or all religions. In many instances, the Congress or state legislatures conclude that the general welfare of society, wholly apart from any religious considerations, demands such regulation. Thus, for temporal purposes, murder is illegal. And the fact that this agrees with the dictates of the Judaeo-Christian religions while it may disagree with others does not invalidate the regulation."

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=172176815440485...

I live in England and when I was a kid in the 80s basically nowhere was open on a Sunday. In the 90s, it changed so the only restriction is that any store over 3000 sq. ft can only trade for 6 consecutive hours.

Even as a non-believer I like these rules and even miss the older ones. Having Sunday be a generally accepted "day of rest" (even if you don't observe it yourself) appeals to me as a way of having a shared cultural "rhythm" to life. Germany's "quiet time" laws seem to play a similar role there. I appreciate not everyone likes such cultural harmonization (or restrictions, based on your POV), however, and things are likely to liberalize further nonetheless.

In a mass-connected society it seems holding on to physical traditions is nearly impossible. Perhaps the 'day of rest' tradition has actually been fueled by the merit of sharing rhythms. A shared pulse allows for self-organizing behavior, and benefits strategies for decentralized markov-decision processes.

Interest in these kind of decentralized behavioral patterns is rising, which could revolutionize our views on the utility of traditions such as the 'day of rest'.

Then take a day of rest. Not everyone is going to share the same "rhythm" no matter what. Fit example other stores are still open, like that Starbucks. And some people enjoy shopping, some find it restful. Who should argue what is recreational?

My head agrees with you. My heart, though, clings a little to the beauty of shared cultural behaviour. Long term, everyone's behaviour will be so independent that each day will look the same but for now, Sunday feels different to any other day in most of England. (This is not much the case in central London, however, as it essentially has no majority culture being a world city.)

My feelings about Sunday are like those of many Americans over Christmas or Thanksgiving. You don't interrupt people and you can't judge people for being unavailable. Most Americans have a cultural appreciation of how those days affect life even if they don't personally celebrate.

I should note I'm not really disagreeing with you - I think people should be able to do what they want - but I wanted to reflect on the idea there are cultural pros and cons in all directions and that restrictions can have a point (and beneficial side effects) even if that point must expire someday.

I've just spent the past month and a bit living in England with family, and as with all the other times I've done so, I noted that nobody actually uses Sunday as a day of rest. It mostly serves to irritate people.

The only argument I can see for it is that it allows retail workers a day off when they would otherwise not have the power to demand one.

That was one of the rationales for keeping it so long. Maggie Thatcher was not a fan of such reasoning, hence the change ;-)

But, well, locations and families vary. I've lived here over 30 years and Sunday has a distinctly restful vibe for most groups of people I know. I imagine people down in the Home Counties are more rush-rush-busy-busy nowadays than we country folk.

I remember the early 1980's UK Sunday shopping experience too. We had one convenience store that probably flouted laws and paid fines. To get there from our village involved getting to town and then another two miles the other side of town, opposite a garage, was the place where you could buy a pint of milk and some other items at a premium price.

The UK retail landscape has changed dramatically since then and in unanticipated ways. Newsagents ceased to be the cornerstone of community that they once were, nowadays we have convenience stores where most people don't walk out with a newspaper under their arm.

Maggie Thatcher was the one that pushed for the Sunday trading laws to be changed, thereafter we became a nation of shoppers (rather than shopkeepers, which was how we described Britain before then). I did not shop on Sunday for many years after that as I did not see the point of having sales spread out over 7 days. Also remember that we also had half day trading on Wednesdays (or another mid-week day) in most towns. So this was a big change.

I think that we would do well to re-visit Sunday trading with more 'Bank Holidays' on Sundays. The weekend after pay day might be good for Sunday trading with the rest of the Sundays being retail free days. We could also do with a few 'car free' Sundays combined with wither no retail or lots of retail more of the 'street festival' flavour.

In the days when the shops were closed on Sundays nobody starved.

As a kid, I could never understand why so many stores were only open during the times when most of their potential customers were either at work or school. Sure, you could skip school or take an unpaid day off work to spend money, but that cost you double. So most of those stores are gone now, replaced by 24-hour wal-marts and internet shopping.

When I grew up, I worked night shift for many years, which at least enabled me to get to the bank, doctor, or specialty stores occasionally by skipping sleep. It was still irritating that they weren't open on my nights off, but at least then the bars were. On the other hand, I couldn't very well go to the bar to hang out after work because there's still a bit of a stigma against hanging out at a bar drinking at 8 am.

I'm all for taking days off and having time slots reserved for family, etc., but inconveniencing everyone else and forcing other people to conform to whatever hours/days you happen to want is just obnoxious. In a society where we can't all afford to hire servants to do our errands for us, people want things that they can't buy because the businesses aren't open, and there are tons of unemployed people who could be working if those businesses were open, it just doesn't make sense to arbitrarily force them to close against the will of the owners, potential customers, and potential employees. I'm amazed that these laws have lasted as long as they have.

I live in Switzerland.

In Switzerland, nothing is open on Sunday, by law, except the occasional café or restaurant[footnote]. And it's a total pain.

Combined with the quiet time laws, which mean that, say, I'm unable to use the vacuum cleaner on a Sunday, it means that I can't even do much housework, and am pretty much forced to relax. So is everybody else.

The end result is that if you go out on a Sunday, you don't meet anyone who's working. Parks are full of people not doing much. The mountainside paths have people walking. The roads don't have much traffic. The entire country is quiet and peaceful.

So, while not being able to shop on Sundays is still a pain... I can see the benefits. Having a day where the entire country isn't working definitely adds to the texture and flavour of the society.

[footnote] Shops in railway stations are exempt from this, the result being that major railway stations tend to have multilevel shopping malls built under them, but even in the land of ubiquitous public transport they're still incredibly inconvenient to get to.

My grandma's house was in Bergen county. Originally I was against the law, considering it just a hold back of more religious times, but pretty much no one supports keeping the law due to religion. Everyone just says it is nice to have a day without massive amounts of traffic clogging the region.

I did indeed notice it was much easier to go out and do your food shopping or go running at the park or track or whatever on Sunday. So it does seem to accomplish what it is kept for.

So I don't support keeping the law banning some shopping on Sunday, but I admit I see why it is there and consider the proponents to have a valid reason. Logically, other laws like having no sales tax are also there for a reason, so it is valid to encourage and discourage shopping legally like this.

This backwards deciding-what's-best-for-everyone-else type thinking drives me insane.

I'm from Perth, Western Australia, a city of ~1.6 million people, which:

1. only allowed retail shops to open on Sunday in _2012_; and

2. only allowed retail shops to open past 6pm on weeknights in _2010_;

Over the years there have been numerous debates and even referenda about this. The same arguments kept coming out:

- what about "family" time?

- what about the poor small businss?

I've always been on the side of the fence where consumers have some pretty broad rights here. Up until 5 years ago, if you worked office hours the only time you could get to a supermarket was Thursday night (late night shopping until 9pm) or on a Saturday. That's pretty darn inconvenient.

I had an educated, single (at the time) flatmate once tell me "it's not that hard for me to go to the shops in the morning and go to work a bit later" to which my response was "well, that's nice for you. Not everyone has that luxury".

The article here mentions the defeat of such laws in the state of New York due to numerous exceptions. This had happened in Perth as well:

- "independent" shops were allowed greater trading hours, including on Sundays. This meant that IGA, a chain of affiliated "independent" supermarkets were typically open 7 days while the big chains (Coles, Woolworths) were not.

- Bunnings (equivalent to Home Depot) was allowed to open whenever they wanted. It was probably too unpopular to do otherwise;

- to artificially bolster failing street retail, two zones were established that were allowed to trade on Sundays (in the Perth city center and Fremantle). Additionally they had late night trading on Fridays instead of Thursdays.

- alcohol as a general rule is sold in a much more limited range of stores in Australia. Corner delis, even supermarkets are not allowed to sell it. You need a retail liquor license, which is fairly strictly controlled and can be worth a lot of money. "Hotels" (in this context meaning venues that were typically once hotels but aren't any more) had 7 day liquor licenses for a drive-in bottle shops (you can literally drive in and buy a carton of beer through your car window) that were allowed to trade 7 days. Other liquor shops could not trade on Sundays.

The value of this was so pronounced that the large supermarket chains would pay millions to buy some of these hotels just for the 7 day retail liquor license.

It's maddening.

The article mentions Germany. Switzerland has this too. The airports and bigger train stations have extended hours so it's not unusual to see people going to the airport on a Sunday to buy groceries (Swiss law may have changed in the last 5+ years; it's been awhile since I've been).

> The airports and bigger train stations have extended hours so it's not unusual to see people going to the airport on a Sunday to buy groceries [...]

Petrol stations as well.

Interesting that this still happens in the US. Although having lived in NJ for a year, if Sunday shopping bans were to happen anywhere, the state with horrible jug handle left turns seems a likely place.

The cities here the Kansas City suburbs banded together and told the state to stuff their ban of Sunday liquor sales. I believe that law may still be on the books, but the KS AG may not be enforcing it.

On a recent trip, my free time in Tel Aviv was Friday and the first half of Saturday, only to end up in Munich on Sunday. It put a damper on me getting out and doing much if any shopping / exploring of stores (jet lag, didn't wake up on Friday until nearly noon). That said, being forced to go out, walk around, partake of cafes and parks wasn't a bad thing.

In some ways, I prefer that to what we have in the states.

The article notes that Germany bans shopping on Sundays. Indeed, many European countries ban stores from being open at certain times of day or on Sundays. For the sake of curiosity I will attempt to elucidate the various restrictions, and exceptions to those restrictions, that we have in Norway.

* Since 2003 (before which stores could not be open past 21:00), there have been no restrictions on opening hours on weekdays. Most supermarkets and grocery stores in urban areas are open until 23:00 -- a few are even open around the clock. In a lot of Europe, the common closing time for grocery stores seems to be 21:00 or so.

* Stores are, in general, not permitted to be open on Sundays.

* Since 1998, stores with a floor area of under 100 square metres, and only those that primarily sell groceries, have been permitted to open on Sundays.

* For petrol stations, the floor area limit is 150 square metres.

* If a store is judged to be in an area of particular interest to tourists, it can open on Sundays regardless of floor area.

* Before major holidays, stores can open on Sundays regardless of floor area. My local grocery store interprets this as allowing it to open on all Sundays in December, but perhaps curiously, most stores do not seem to open on Sundays in December.

(* There might well be more restrictions and exceptions that I'm unaware of.)

* The current government planned to lift all restrictions on opening hours on Sundays, but after opposition from the major supermarket chains (virtually all supermarkets/grocery stores in Norway are operated by a handful of chains) the plans were put on ice.

A lot of this comes down to the contrast between the ostensibly rights-driven American politics and the more consensus-driven politics in many European politics. While in the US the government openly cooperating with major businesses to ensure their smooth operation without any major disruptions would probably be seen by the general public as corruption, it would not be seen (and is not seen), in my opinion, in that way in much of Europe -- but rather as doing what's necessary and natural to ensure the smooth functioning of society. Not just with regards to the grocery stores themselves, but also with regards to the values of society. A lot of people, even many who are not religious, see the "resting day" as a value that's worth preserving, and ditching it in favour of the right to keep your store open whenever you want would widely be seen as very foolish.

Most of the proponents of Sunday shopping pitch it as a personal freedom: You should be able to go to the store and buy something if you want it.

However, it's not strictly a personal freedom since it involves another entity : The store, and all of the supply chain involved in bringing you that good at that time.

By saying one has the right to buy on a given day, one must also say that one doesn't have the choice to sell on a given day. I realize that an employee could just refuse to come in to work on Sunday in order to sell a product, but that's just not a choice in many situations.

Finally, regarding small businesses getting hurt: I don't see an argument that working an extra day will magically make them more profitable. If they're just barely scraping by selling 6 days a week, I don't think they'll do much better by working 7. In many cases, it could be argued that they're spreading 6 days of profits over 7 days... meaning that they work more for less.

It is strictly a personal freedom. No one is forcing someone to sell. But if enough people want to buy on Sundays enough people will sell on Sundays.

I know you mean well, but I don't agree.

Buyers are usually individual/independent agents. Sellers are almost always not (in large scale economies). At the very extreme "edge" of the seller's supply chain are folks like cashiers and salesmen. They do not have a say in the matter of whether or not they work their organization's business hours. So, they have in fact lost their freedom. They have no choice but to sell.

> I know you mean well...

Edit: I overreacted to that phrase at first, and thanks to david-given's comment I'm changing my reply in the interest of a more civil discussion. (For the curious, my original reply is quoted in David's comment.)

"I know you mean well" can easily be interpreted in a way that causes offense even if you didn't mean any. To someone on the other side of the argument it may sound like "You can be forgiven for your point of view, because you don't know any better." (In fact I interpreted it that way.)

I know that's not what you said, and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. But an innocent comment can be taken in a way that you didn't intend, so it's always good to think about how something will come across to the people you're talking to. I have learned this the hard way many times myself. :-)

So going back to your previous comment:

> By saying one has the right to buy on a given day, one must also say that one doesn't have the choice to [not] sell on a given day.

I doubt you will find anyone who opposes Sunday shopping laws claiming that anyone has a "right" to shop on Sunday. Only that we have a right to not have government arbitrarily interfere with private interactions like this.

The lack of a law prohibiting Sunday shopping does not create an obligation on the part of merchants to be open that day. If that were the case, then merchants would have to be open every day except the days the government outlaws.

Consider B&H Photo in New York. They are quite happy to work Sunday. But they do close Friday afternoon through Saturday to honor the Sabbath.

B&H also closes for Purim, Passover, Shavuos, Tisha B'Av, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Succos (a full week!), and yes, Christmas.

Does B&H need a shopping law to enable them to close for these holy days? How would a Sunday shopping law improve their freedom at all?

> That is a pretty offensive way to begin an argument. I recommend avoiding that phrase in the future.

So is this.

That's a very good point! I should have left that comment out, or worded it differently. Thank you for calling me on it.

Well played! That was precisely the response I deserved. (I posted that comment while I was in a really bad mood, and regretted it instantly, and my apologies.)

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