U.S. has Sunday shopping dispute

Press, 5 July 1977, Page 17

U.S. has Sunday shopping dispute

In the continuing debate over whether stores should be open on Sundays, social policy becomes '.'.rapped in theology and commerce. Those favouring Sunday selling argue that it increases jobs and tax revenues, offers convenience to consumers, eases weekday traffic congestion and, not least, ends the diversion of police and court resources needed to handle those people who are violating the law by staying open anyway.

Opponents say Sunday shopping drives marginal retailers out of business, wastes energy resources, disturbs the rhythm of the week, and contributes to the breakdown of the family by reducing the time it spends together in worship and joint activities.

While no-one can accuse either side of lacking ingenuity in their arguments. the battle c °*?es down mostly to the Bible against the bottom line. And right now the bottom line seems to be winning. More than half of the states still have Blue Laws — Sunday selling bans — but most of them

are under court or legislative attack. For the last year, New York State, for the first time in its history, has had no Sunday selling ban. There are proposals under discussion in the Legislature now to restore it. Legislative leaders, however, said earlier this month that they would not support them. Connecticut’s latest Blue Laws are a year old, but they have not been enforced because several courts have found them unconstitutional. The General Assembly took no action, in part because its leaders wanted to see what the appellate courts would do. In some counties in New Jersey, there is unrestricted selling on Sunday. Others restrict the sale of certain goods. But those restrictions were declared unconstitutional in March by a lower court judge. 'That ruling has been stayed pending an appeal.

The law's struck down were hardly as restrictive as those written on blue paper in seventeenth-cen-tury New Haven by Puritans who prevented regu-

lar work, shopping, travelling, sports, or public entertainment on Sunday. In the last few years, in the region and elsewhere in the country, Blue Laws have generally been held by courts to be ambiguous and inconsistent. But it is not impossible to draft a constitutional set of Blue Laws. The Supreme Court has upheld Sunday closing laws in principle, on the

ground that a day of rest should be considered in the public interest. In its last major decision on the subject, in 1961, the Court said that Maryland’s closing law did not violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

And in his opinion last June, that struck down New York’s Blue Laws, Judge Sol Wachtler, writing for a unanimous Court of Appeals, said that the

Legislature could “readily devise a system of exemptions which could produce an atmosphere appropriate for a common day of rest and one which is consonant with today’s needs and mores.” In the last century, dozens of exceptions had been added to the New York law, which generally prohibited “all manner of public selling or offering

for sale of any property upon Sunday.” In his colourfully written opinion, Judge Wachtler called these exceptions “plyglot” “helter-skelter,” “gallimaufrous,” and “crazyquailt.”

The laws, which for several years had not been enforced in New York City, but were strictly observed in some suburban counties, made it legal for individuals to eat meals in

restaurants but not to take food out; to buy books in a newsstand but not in a bookstore; to buy skis but r.o ski wax; to buy gasoline but not windshield wipers. In Connecticut, last year’s law sought to make sense of similar exemptions, but after several lower courts struck it down, the State Attorney’s office decided not to en-

force it. A superior court panel in Waterbury is expected to rule soon on one of the cases. Caldor Inc., which would like to stay closed on Sundays, has sued Two Guys, which would rather be open.

In New Jersey, 11 counties ended restrictions on Sunday selling. The remaining 10 outlaw the sale of clothing and furnishings, and building, office, and household sup-

plies. Shoppers scurry from county to county since in some places it is permissible to sell fishing boots but not ordinary shoes, disposable diapers but not washable ones. In the opinion in March striking down the law banning sales, Judge Sylvia Pressler sympathised with working mothers who had to do their shopping on Saturdays. She viewed Sunday shopping as a family ad-

venture. In contrast to an earlier opinion by the state’s highest court that upheld the law primarily because it was thought to ease traffic congestion, she found that unrestricted Sunday shopping would have “the positive effect of relieving the stress, tension, and traffic congestion which presently results from the intensity of Saturday as the primary shopping day.”

there is no clear evidence that Sunday openings do not tempt consumers to purchase items they might ordinarily not. In Calfiornia, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Detroit, seven-day-a-week selling has been successful in boosting the volume of large department stores. Small retailers say this increase has come at their expense, and they do not want to keep their shops open a seventh day. Unions of retail clerks, who fear that working Sundays will become mandatory instead of voluntary, also oppose Sunday sales. Although selling bans are rooted in the Old Testament’s command that the seventh day should be for rest, so far there has been only sporadic opposition to seven-day selling from church groups.

Those favouring Blue Laws also argue that Sunday shopping would merely spread six-days’ sales over seven. They contend that the public has only a fixed amount of money to spend. But

The apparent popularity of Sunday shopping with consumers has not/ been lost on legislators. Early last month, in announcing that the New York State Senate would not push through a new set of Blue Laws, Majority Leader Warren M. Anderson said: “The public has voted by its shopping.”-

New Zealand is locked in a controversy over Sunday shopping. But it is not alone. The United States is confronted by a similar dispute, as TOM GOLDSTEIN reports in the “New York Times” . . .