Blue law
Blue laws are laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the western world. The laws were adopted originally for religious reasons, specifically to promote the observance of the Christian day of worship. Since then, they have come to serve secular purposes as well.
Blue laws commonly ban certain business and recreational activities on Sundays, and impose restrictions on the retail sale of hard goods and consumables, particularly alcoholic beverages. The laws also place limitations on a range of other endeavors—including travel, fashions, hunting, professional sports, stage performances, movie showings, and gambling. While less prevalent today, blue laws continue to be enforced in parts of the United States and Canada as well as in European countries, such as Austria, Germany, Norway, and Poland, where most stores are required to close on Sundays.
In the United States, the Supreme Court has upheld blue laws as constitutional despite their religious origins if supported by secular justifications. This has resulted to the provision of a day of rest for the general population. Meanwhile, various state courts have struck down the laws as either unenforceable or in violation of their states' constitutions. In response, state legislators have re-enacted certain Sunday laws to satisfy the rulings while allowing some of the other statutes to remain on the books with no intention to enforce them.
History
The Roman Emperor Constantine promulgated the first known law regarding prohibition of Sunday labour for apparent religion-associated reasons in A.D. 321:The earliest laws in North America addressing Sunday activities and public behavior were enacted in the Jamestown Colony in 1619 by the first General Assembly of Virginia. Among the 70 laws passed by the assembly was a mandate requiring attendance by all colonists at both morning and afternoon worship services on Sundays. The laws adopted that year also included provisions addressing idleness, gambling, drunkenness, and excessive apparel. Similar laws aimed at keeping the Sabbath holy and regulating morals were soon adopted throughout the colonies.
The first known example of the phrase "blue laws" in print was in the March 3, 1755, edition of the New-York Mercury, in which the writer imagines a future newspaper praising the revival of "our old Blue Laws". In his 1781 book General History of Connecticut, the Reverend Samuel Peters used the phrase to describe numerous laws adopted by 17th-century Puritans that prohibited various activities on Sunday, recreational as well as commercial. Beyond that, Peters' book is regarded as an unreliable account of the laws and probably was written to satirize their puritanical nature.
While the historical roots of Sunday trade laws in the United States are generally known, the origin of the term "blue laws" remains a mystery. According to a Time magazine editorial in 1961, the year the Supreme Court heard four cases on the issue, the color blue came to be associated with colonial laws in opposition to the red emblem of British royalty. Other explanations have been offered. One of the most widely circulated is that early blue laws adopted in Connecticut were printed on blue paper. However, no copies have been found that would support this claim and it is not deemed credible. A more plausible explanation, one that is gaining general acceptance, is that the laws adopted by Puritans were aimed at enforcing morality and thus were "blue-nosed", though the term "blue" may have been used in the vernacular of the times as a synonym for puritanism itself, in effect, overly strict.
As Protestant moral reformers organized the Sabbath reform in 19th-century America, calls for the enactment and enforcement of stricter Sunday laws developed. Numerous Americans were arrested for working, keeping an open shop, drinking alcohol, traveling, and engaging in recreational activities on Sundays. Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley write that throughout their existence, organizations advocating first-day Sabbatarianism, such as the Lord's Day Alliance in North America and the Lord's Day Observance Society in the British Isles, were supported by labor unions in lobbying "to prevent secular and commercial interests from hampering freedom of worship and from exploiting workers".
In Canada, the Ligue du Dimanche, a Roman Catholic Sunday league, supported the Lord's Day Act in 1923 and promoted first-day Sabbatarian legislation. Beginning in the 1840s, workers, Jews, Seventh Day Baptists, freethinkers, and other groups began to organize opposition. Throughout the century, Sunday laws fueled churchstate controversy, and as an issue that contributed to the emergence of modern American minority-rights politics. On the other hand, the more recent Dies Domini, written by Pope John Paul II in 1998, advocates Sunday legislation in that it protects civil servants and workers; the North Dakota Catholic Conference in 2011 likewise maintained that blue laws, in accordance with the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, "ensure that, for reasons of economic productivity, citizens are not denied time for rest and divine worship". Similarly, Chief Justice Earl Warren, while recognizing the partial religious origin of blue laws, acknowledged the "secular purpose they served by providing a benefit to workers at the same time that they enhanced labor productivity".
Laws by jurisdiction
Europe
Germany
The Ladenschlussgesetz on Sundays and public holidays have been in effect since 1956.Denmark
In Denmark the closing laws restricting retail trade on Sundays were effectively abolished on October 1, 2012. Retail trade is only restricted on public holidays and on Constitution Day, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. On these days almost all shops will remain closed. Exempt are bakeries, DIYs, garden centres, gas stations and smaller supermarkets.England and Wales
Before 1994
Prior to 1994, trading laws forbade sale of certain products on a Sunday; the distinction between those that could and could not be sold was increasingly seen as arbitrary, and the laws were inadequately enforced and widely flouted. For example, some supermarkets would treat the relatively modest fines arising as a business cost and open nonetheless.Since 1994
The Sunday Trading Act 1994 relaxed restrictions on Sunday trading. This produced vocal opposition from bodies such as the Keep Sunday Special campaign, and the Lord's Day Observance Society: on religious grounds, on the grounds that it would increase consumerism, and that it would reduce shop assistants' weekend leisure time.The legislation permits large shops to open for up to six hours on Sunday. Small shops, those with an area of below 280 square metres, are free to set their own Sunday trading times. Some large shops, such as off-licences, service stations and garages, are exempt from the restrictions.
Some very large shops open for longer than six hours on a Sunday by allowing customers in to browse 30 minutes prior to allowing them to make a purchase, since the six-hour restriction only applies to time during which the shop may make sales.
Christmas Day and Easter Sunday are non-trading days. This applies even to garden centres, which earlier had been trading over Easter, but not to small shops.
Netherlands
Prior to 1996, shops were generally closed on Sundays. A new law regarding opening times changed that and leaves that decision mostly up to local municipalities. This law was changed several times since.The Zondagswet, a law on Sabbath desecration, is mainly to ensure that church services remain undisturbed on Sundays and Christian holidays. It forbids public festivities on a Sunday before 13:00, as well as making noise that carries farther than, but activities that are unlikely to disturb church services are exempt.
Northern Ireland
Prior to 2008, no football was permitted to be played on Sundays by clubs affiliated to the Irish Football Association in Northern Ireland.Shops with a floor area of over may only open from 1 to 6pm on Sundays.
In Belfast, public playgrounds were closed on Sundays until 1965. Swings in public parks were tied up and padlocked to prevent their use. Similar laws formerly applied to cinemas, pubs and parks.
Poland
Since 2007, blue laws were enacted and resulted in stores closing on the 13 state holidays in Poland – these are both religious and secular days of rest. In 2014, an initiative by the Law and Justice party failed to pass the reading in the Sejm to ban trading on Sundays and state holidays. However, since 2018, the ruling government and the President of Poland has signed a law that restricts store trading from March 1, 2018, to the first and last Sunday of the month, Palm Sunday, the 3rd and 4th Advent Sundays, as well as trading until 14.00 for Easter Saturday and Christmas Eve.In 2019, the restriction was extended, and trading was permitted solely on the last Sunday of the month, as well as Palm Sunday, the 3rd and 4th Advent Sundays, as well as trading until 14.00 for Easter Saturday and Christmas Eve. From 2020, stores may only be open on seven Sundays in the year: Palm Sunday, the 3rd and 4th Advent Sundays, the last Sunday of January, April, June and August as well as trading until 14.00 for Easter Saturday and Christmas Eve. As a result of restrictions in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2nd Advent Sunday was later added as a shopping day.
North America
Canada
The Lord's Day Act, which since 1906 had prohibited business transactions from taking place on Sundays, was declared unconstitutional in the 1985 case R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd. Calgary police officers witnessed several transactions at the Big M Drug Mart, all of which occurred on a Sunday. Big M was charged with a violation of the Lord's Day Act. A provincial court ruled that the Lord's Day Act was unconstitutional, but the Crown proceeded to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. In a unanimous 6–0 decision, the Lord's Day Act was ruled an infringement of the freedom of conscience and religion defined in section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.A Toronto referendum in 1950 allowed only team sports to be played professionally on Sunday. Theatre performances, movie screenings, and horse racing were not permitted until the 1960s.
The Supreme Court later concluded, in R. v. Edwards Books and Art Ltd. , that Ontario's Retail Business Holiday Act, which required some Sunday closings, did not violate the Charter because it did not have a religious purpose. Nonetheless, as of today, virtually all provincial Sunday closing laws have ceased to exist. Some were struck down by provincial courts, but most were simply abrogated, often due to competitive reasons where out-of-province or foreign merchants were open.