Illegal Sunday Car Sales

The BBQ Pit
21

I hated Sunday when I was broke and unemployed because it was the one day where I was more or less having to sit on my ass and not look for a job.

I hated Sundays because in my state, one could not buy liquor by the bottle. In many states, one cannot even buy beer on Sunday. Because it’s Sunday silly. Can’t buy wine either. So, the Catholics need to make sure that they have enough booze for their voodoo rituals and whatnot.

No other explanation needed. it’s Sunday. It’s the Sabbath. Well, ok, but what about the rest of us who do not follow your traditions? Atheists, Buddhist, Jews…

Shapiro: I need Saturday off for Temple. (Temple is playing Penn. State and he has tickets.)

What about the myriad of jobs that require people to work on Sundays? Hotels, hospitals/clinics, airlines, not to mention jobs where people must work on Sundays like cops, firement, doctors, pilots, service people and a thousand other jobs?

Now it’s different somewhat, but until very recently, a lot of businesses would be closed or have short hours on Sunday. Lots of time as a kid I might want to go to the shopping mall. But, oh shit! It’s Sunday, they wont be open tonight (because it’s Sunday).

The bank is not open on Sunday. Government offices are closed on Sunday (need a car tag for example? Can’t do it today, why, it’s Sunday!) It is such an inconvience.

This stupid Sunday mentality is everywhere. There was even an episode on Seinfeld where a furniture mover wouldn’t help Elaine take her piece of furniture upstairs because it was Sunday and movers don’t work on Sunday. A lot of workers will refuse to work because it’s Sunday. “Aw, it’s Sunday! I’ll work tomorrow.” “I need you today…” “But it’s Sunday!”

So, these car dealers are such idiots that they waste taxpayer dollars to petition state governments to make it illegal for them to make a living during that sacred 24 hour window called Sunday, so they can get drunk on Saturday night, go to church and watch NFL. To not be open on the one day where most people are off from work and are looking for cars. What about people looking for a house? Should the real estate agencies be closed too?

I will reinterate that it is absolutely asinine to prevent commerce because it’s Sunday. The car dealers are stupid. Hire more staff. If your holy roller ass wants to be off for church and football, go ahead. I’ll work for you. I don’t give a shit what day it is. As a matter of fact, I like being off work during the week. Less people, less hassle, bars are more fun. Less people in the shopping areas and the theater.

Again, those Sabbath worshipping, Sunday fucks can kiss my Jesus. Amen.

22

You may not like it as a consumer, but, as I tried to explain in Post #19, it’s hardly asinine or stupid from the dealers’ point of view. Why the heck should they spend the money to hire more staff if it won’t increase their profits?

I suspect the OP’s purpose in starting this thread was not really to get a factual answer to his question, but to rant and complain, as you are doing, in which case this would be more appropriate for the BBQ Pit, or at least IMHO.

23

Thudlow you Dudlow,
I am the original poster and I am grateful to you and all the other dopers who educated me about the Sunday no car sales in Illinois.
I am thinking of a throwing my hat into the new car lot and running for Governor on this issue. Since I am opposed to single issue campaigns so I will also stop the Illinois State Income Tax from being collected on tips. Can’t do anything about the Feds.
And nothing but Straight Dope for All!
Vote For Bernieyeball in the Fall!

24

Okay, you’ve explained a lot of stuff. But try this: What makes auto dealers different than appliance dealers or computer dealers? Is there something special about auto dealers that I can’t think of, or is political clout the only thing that distinguishes them from other industries?

25

I expect it’s the cost of the purchase. Cars are probably the largest purchase a person makes, next to buying a house. They are frequently financed over several years.

26

Currently there’s a debate in Indiana about Sunday liquor sales. On one side you have liquor stores, who are pretty sure that they’ll sell about the same amount of liquor if they’re allowed (or, by competitive pressure, forced) to open on Sunday, and would incur additional operating expenses. On the other side you have the supermarkets, who are already open on Sundays and would like to be able to sell the beer and wine they keep in stock. Most of the folks I talked to when I was in Indiana were on the “allow Sunday sales” side of the debate, but then I lived in a college town.

At least you can now legally buy alcohol on Election Day. There’s a 19th-century holdover of a law if there ever was one.

27

Actually, that one isn’t a religious ‘blue’ law. Churches have no concern about liquor on Election Day.

That law was a clean voting one. Ward heelers used to round up the drunks & winos in the district, haul them down to the polling place, and then after they had voted the way they’d been told, take them back to the local bar and buy them a round or two. So shutting down liquor sales on Election Day put a stop to this, supposedly.

28

I don’t know. It may just be inertia: it’s easier to keep something illegal than to make it illegal. But if you want a WAG or two, it may have something to do, at least historically, with the fact that when you buy a car, you have to arrange for registration and insurance, and the connections required to do this might not always be—or might not used to have been—available on Sunday. Or it might have something to do with the fact that only car dealers sell cars, but you can buy appliances or computers from more general retailers (like Sears or Best Buy).

I want a Governor who can do something toward fixing the financial mess the state is in. Do you have any better ideas than making pornos?

29

The blue laws have a long, rich history that are part religious, part employee protection, and part one group vs. another. Originally, it was the Mom & Pop stores who insisted upon it in order to prevent the big department stores chains from opening on a Sunday when the Mom & Pop store wanted to remain closed.

Then, the department stores insisted upon it over the discount chains. It kept up the costs for the discount chains because they had fewer days to make enough money on their low margins.

I remember that it was the hardware stores in Texas that got together and ignored the blue laws. It was a dare for the State of Texas to crack down on them. Grocery stores joined suit. You could open grocery stores on Sundays, but you couldn’t sell certain items. The grocery stores would literally put a rope across the aisles of the stuff they couldn’t sell. One Sunday, they stopped putting up the rope.

The legislature met and repealed the blue laws soon after.

30

As far as I know new car dealers are closed on Sundays as the result of the N.A.D.A., the national automotive dealer association. Used car dealers are not bound by their rules.

31

So you want to force everyone to work on Sunday? Is that a free market economy?

32

I’ll get behind this 100%. If you’re a car dealer and don’t like being open Sundays THEN DON’T BE OPEN ON SUNDAYS!
“Oh, but boo hoo then my competitors will be open and then I’ll have to be open.”
THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T BE IN THE RETAIL BUSINESS!
Buncha cry babies.
Last car I was going to buy was going to be either a Honda or a Toyota. I asked the Honda dealer what their service bays hours were. “7-5 Monday thru Friday. The mechanics are unionized.” So if I wanted Honda to do any preventative or emergency repairs on my car I had to pretty much take off of work to do it.
Toyota dealer? “Our service center is open from 6 a.m. to midnight Monday thru Friday, Saturday 8 till noon.”
So guess what kind of car I bought?

33

Acsenray:
This in not about the government making anyone stay open on Sunday.
It is about the government prohibiting work on Sunday at the behest of one group or another.
Of course you know that is anti free market.
When I was scheduled to work on Sunday for various telephone companies more than a few pinheads would rag on me about it.
I would have to tell them that I knew it was Sunday but the telephone wires that I was trying to fix did not know that. Neither did the mice that chewed on the lines.
After they drove off I would knock out their phone service.
When I got their trouble ticket I would try and find them and tell them they would have to wait till Monday because they did not want me to work on Sunday.

34

Wow, this is suddenly about much more than the inconvenience of not being able to buy a car on Sunday.

35

Here’s a bit of a paradox – Sunday is the most convenient day for most consumers to shop because we have a tradition of getting Sunday off. To make it more convenient, you have to give fewer and fewer people Sundays off. At some point, so many people are working on Sundays that it is no longer a convenient day for consumers to shop.

36

aray,
Please be a good psychic and predict the future for all of us unemployed stiffs out here so we will know when we are going back to work!
I’m sure there are members of congress that would like to know so they can cut off our unemployment.

37

How about I persuade my powerful friends in the legislature to enact a special welfare benefit for people with a proclivity for sabotaging vital services for the sake of petty oneupmanship? I’d rather have such people permanently on the dole than ever trust them with responsibility that might affect anyone else’w wellbeing.

38

Up until around 1990 our biggest local department store chain, Belk, did not open on Sundays. Then we had a big winter storm in December so they had to close for a few days including a Saturday. They opened the next few Sundays because they said they needed to make up for lost Christmas sales due to the snow and a few months later they opened on Sunday all year round.

39

Since the OP seems to be more interested in ranting about the policy rather than factual information, I’m moving this from General Questions to the Pit.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

40

If car dealerships are open on Sundays, auto financing companies and banks also need to be open in order for the dealership to do business.