Sunday shopping
Sunday shopping or Sunday trading refers to the ability of retailers to operate stores on Sunday, a day that Christian tradition typically recognises as a day of rest, though the rationale for Sunday trade bans often includes secular reasoning. Rules governing shopping hours, such as Sunday shopping, vary around the world but many countries and subnational jurisdictions continue to ban or restrict Sunday shopping. In the United States, rules are enshrined within blue laws.
Arguments in favour of Sunday shopping
Sunday shopping has its main argument in the consumer welfare. Extending opening hours gives customers more time to do their shopping. They allow individuals to avoid peak shopping hours and having to queue in their free time.Public authorities hurt consumers by keeping stores from choosing their opening hours according to their market presumptions of consumers' demand. According to the OECD, demand has strongly evolved towards greater flexibility, also due to a greater diversity of working hours in the economy in general, as well as to a higher female labour participation in the labour market.
Before the liberalisation of shop opening hours in a country like Austria, for example, one could observe an increase in cross-border shopping towards countries with more liberal shopping hours.
It has not been proven that Sunday shopping hurts retailers by leading all of them to open longer hours. Consumer preferences can point in the direction of an extension of shop opening hours in a given area without this need arising in another area. In Spain, for instance, where relatively few restrictions survive, retail stores are open an average of 46 hours per week. In Sweden, 15 years after liberalisation, supply as regards shop opening hours has not yet standardised itself. On the contrary, if 80% of the department stores and supermarkets are open on Sunday, only half of corner shops and 48% of furniture stores are open on this day.
Final extension of opening hours, for each individual firm, will depend on:
- the price consumers are ready to pay for a 24/7 offer of certain products, as prices can rise due to higher wages for Sunday workers;
- the wage that workers will or can demand in order to work additional hours.
Campaigns for deregulation of Sunday shopping have been put forward mainly by liberal parties. But as long ago as 1899, even US Christian churchgoers were calling for a reform of the laws in the US, because the result was not more people going to Church but "enforced idleness": George Orwell uses the term in Down and out in Paris and London to remark that the worst problem of the underclass is being made to wait.
A deontological argument based on individualist principles holds that business owners should be free to set whatever hours they please and to hire whatever workers are available, able, and willing to work during those hours.
Arguments against Sunday shopping
Arguments in favour of regulation of shop opening hours usually emanate from trade unions and industry federations, as well as socialist and Christian democratic parties. They include:- protection of workers, vulnerable because of economic conditions and lack of job security, from the need to work also on a day which should be devoted to cultural or familial activities.
- protection of small and medium-sized enterprises, that would face higher competition from larger shops.
United States jurist Stephen Johnson Field, with regard to Sunday blue laws, stated:
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." For example, the United States Congress was supported by the Lord's Day Alliance in securing "a day of rest for city postal clerks whose hours of labor, unlike those of city mail carriers, were largely unregulated." 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. 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 acknowledging the partial religious origin of blue laws, acknowledged their "secular purpose they served by providing a benefit to workers at the same time that they enhanced labor productivity", declaring: that "the State seeks to set one day apart from all others as a day of rest, repose, recreation and tranquility--a day which all members of the family and community have the opportunity to spend and enjoy together, a day on which there exists relative quiet and disassociation from the everyday intensity of commercial activities, a day on which people may visit friends and relative who are not available during working days."
In some religions, the day of the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, said to be the day God rested after six days of creation. This is written in the Torah or Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible. Specifically, number 3 or 4 in the list of the Ten Commandments is "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy". Not to follow one or many of the Ten Commandments can be considered a sin, or a wrong thing to do. In Judaism, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the Hebrew calendar week, which in English is known as Saturday.
Sunday shopping by continent
Europe
European Union
EU law allows each Member State to set its own policy concerning work on Sundays. Working time in EU member states is addressed in the Working Time Directive: only a weekly rest after six days of work is required. The European Court of Justice in its case law on the subject, built from the 1980s, has not confirmed that Sunday should forcibly be the day of interruption. For the European Commission, "the choice of a closing day of shopping involves historical, cultural, touristic, social and religious considerations within the discretion of each Member State".The following European Union countries currently allow all shops to open for at least part of every Sunday: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden.
The following European Union countries currently allow shops to open every Sunday in towns and cities designated as tourist destinations and currently have a very extensive list of them that includes capitals and major cities: Belgium, France and Spain.
In Malta, restrictions were lifted in early 2017, and grocery shops are now allowed to open; other stores have to pay a weekly fee of €700 to be allowed to legally trade on Sundays.
Belgium
Shops in Belgium may open on a certain number of Sunday afternoons. In March 2006, the number of Sunday opening days increased from three to up to nine. Six of these are determined by the federal government and three may be determined by municipalities. In addition, the criteria which a municipality must meet to be recognised as a "tourist centre" were relaxed.There are also arrangements for food stores to open on Sunday and wider arrangements for Sunday opening of certain sectors such as furniture stores, DIY stores and garden centres.
Czech Republic
According to the Czech labour code, where operations so allow, the employer shall set a rest period during the week for all employees to fall on a Sunday, but Sunday shopping itself is not restricted. Although the discussion about restriction is ongoing. Since 2016 there are restrictions for larger shops during selected public holidays.Croatia
The Roman Catholic Church and some other minor organisations tried to influence the Croatian Government in order for Sunday shopping to be banned. Although it had worked for some time, the Croatian Constitutional Court declared banning Sunday shopping to be unconstitutional, and on 28 April 2004 issued a decision making it legal. The Church admitted defeat in the battle over closing shops on Sundays. However, on 15 July 2008, the Croatian Parliament, again under pressure from the Catholic Church; passed a new-old law banning Sunday shopping effective 1 January 2009. However, this new ban was also declared to be unconstitutional by the Croatian Constitutional Court on 19 June 2009.A new temporary ban, introduced between 27 April 2020 and 26 May 2020 related to measures to restrict the spread of COVID-19, was also declared unconstitutional on 14 September 2020. In 2023, a ban on Sunday shopping was enacted. Starting on 1 July 2023, shops are only able to stay open for 16 Sundays a year.