Trading Hours

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31996, 24 May 1969, Page 12

Trading Hours

The change from Friday to Thursday in the late-night shopping at Lyttelton has apparently benefited Lyttelton shopkeepers. After three weeks of late Thursday shopping, most shopkeepers in the borough report higher turnovers than on their previous—Fridaylate nights. No doubt some of the extra busmess has been generated by passengers coming off the interisland steamer late on Thursday afternoon and those embarking the same night for Wellington. It was this prospect which tempted the Lyttelton retailers to change their late night But many shopkeepers consider that Christchurch residents, not inter-island passengers, are the main source of their extra revenue.

Christchurch residents now have a wider spread of shopping hours than those of any other New Zealand city, provided they are prepared—as many obviously are—to travel some distance. They may shop at Lyttelton on Thursday evening, anywhere else in Christchurch (except Lyttelton or New Brighton) on Friday evening, or at New Brighton all day on Saturday. Evidently the public appreciate the greater spread of shopping hours and the greater variety of “ exempted goods ” which have been on sale in owner-operated small suburban food stores in the evenings and week-ends since 1959. It is also evident that shop assistants have not been adversely affected by the minor, but growing, breaches in the tradition of late Friday night shopping. In fact, their union has recently adopted a more flexible attitude to late nights other than on Friday.

This new flexibility does not extend to Saturday morning work. The union officials’ attitude appears to be that any change from Monday-to-Friday trading is a retrograde step. The Saturday trading at New Brighton is an exception—for which the employers pay, at time and a half—and not to be used as a precedent for the general reintroduction of a practice discarded in 1943. But is this attitude in the interests of the union’s members? Many trade unionists in this country accept shift work and work spread over six or seven days of the week. The employers’ interests are certainly not considered by the union officials who oppose Saturday trading, or who condone it only on payment of penalty rates. Finally, and most important, the convenience of the shopping public is apt to be overlooked by shopkeepers and their employees. Since 1943 shopping habits and needs have undergone profound change. Self-service stores and supermarkets have taken most of the food business from small suburban shops; many more shoppers travel by car and expect to park where they shop; the proportion of married women working has trebled; television and the 10 o’clock closing of hotels rival shopping as evening entertainment; and the rising influx of tourists—all from countries where shops are open on Saturday morning—deserves consideration. Perhaps Saturday morning trading is a cause which might be taken up by the Consumers’ Association and the tourist industry.