This is a good example of why “blue laws” can be good for businesses (and/or their employees). If all car dealers are open 7 days a week, they won’t do much more business than if they were only open 5 or 6 days a week, but they’ll have higher operating expenses and they’ll have to have people working there all 7 days. But if some car dealers are open 7 days a week, they have an advantage over those which aren’t.
Springfield is one of the Illinois municipalities that took a look at its blue laws and said “fuck that.” The wheels were put into motion c. 2002 ish, when the then-mayor, a fun-loving Irishman, was headed out for a day on the lake on Sunday morning, stopped by the grocery store to stock up on beer, and found the liquor section roped off. Some hearings were held, and within a month or so the rule was no more. Springfieldians can now buy liquour 24/7.
I grew up in Texas - yep, blue laws.
We had blue laws in Pennsylvania, no shopping. Then they relaxed them. Stores could sell you stuff, but other than that they couldn’t assist you.
And that incidentally is why Saturday is the other non-work day of the week. When the labor movement was lobbying for a 5 day work week it wasn’t a given as to which days we’d have off. But since that happened to be a time of large scale Jewish immigration to the US, and Saturday is the Sabbath for Jews and Sunday is the Sabbath for Christians, the unions argued workers should have those days off for religious reasons. And thus we have the weekend as we know it today.
At one time, Ontario had strict laws against businesses being open on Sunday. Exceptions were made for small stores like a family-owned variety store, determined by a maximum allowed square footage. Consequently, some smaller grocery stores erected barriers where one half the store was blocked off, typically the fresh produce section, but the more profitable prepared foods and deli section remained open, bringing them in line with the max square footage regulation. And heaven forfend that a liquor store dare be open on the Lord’s Day!
Today everything is open on Sunday, and in fact for many businesses it’s one of the busiest shopping days of the week. So far, we have not been smitten from on high.
Yep, you still can’t buy a car in Illinois on Sunday. At a dealership, anyway.
It depends. Shops inside cities aren’t legally allowed to operate on the Sabbath, although there are exceptions, like grocery stores, convenience stores and anything selling “neccesities”. May stores also ignore the law, and municipalities have been known to look the other way, but in general, you can’t really go shopping on the Sabbath. Shops can open outside city limits, which means that strip malls are usually very busy on the weekends.
Note that this doesn’t apply to restaurants and entertainment venues, which can open whenever they want. Kosher restaurants are closed on the Sabbath, of course.
Regarding businesses, you can work on the Sabbath, but you can’t force workers to work on their Sabbath, and I think you have to pay those who do, much more than their usual pay. Israeli “Blue Laws” have a complicated history - they’re as much a result of strong labor unions as they are of religious influence.
There is no public transportation on the Sabbath - except for the city of Haifa, due to some historical fluke. There are always taxis, of course.
Is it legal, then, to discriminate by religion in hiring? Like, if a business wants to stay open on Sundays, but they currently happen to have a heavily-Christian workforce, which would make that difficult, are you allowed to preferentially hire Jews and Muslims to restore a balanced workweek?
And I’m guessing that the law only recognizes Jews, Christians, and Muslims (whose “sabbath” is presumably considered to be Friday). If, say, a Thor-worshiper were to emigrate to Israel, would they be allowed to call Thursday the day they’re required to have off? Not that I expect that most businesses would actually mind that, since someone willing to work all three of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday would probably be considered a good thing.
I guess they are not strict about it, unlike Rio during a World Cup final.
I have seen buses in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Just a few lines, though; no way could you force people to rely on them to get to work.
I remember when I lived in Cleveland Heights, on Sundays the Walgreens could only sell wine, but the CVS across the street in South Euclid could only sell beer
In PA, baseball was banned on Sundays until the 1930s. So the A’s and Phillies could not have home games on Sunday. The ban was partially lifted but no game could start before 1 PM, nor could continue past 7 PM. I have no idea what the purpose of the latter restriction, although the former was basically to encourage church-going. Since there were doubleheaders every Sunday, the result was a lot of 7 inning games ended at 7. I once tried to find out when the law was repealed, but completely fanned. At any rate doubleheaders have disappeared so it no longer matters.
When I moved to Montreal, there was a ban on most Sunday sales. In addition, stores whose main business was selling food were required to close Monday mornings. The government used this law to try to close the Eaton’s department store and a judge ruled that since a department store had a whole bunch of departments you could infer that its “main” business was the small food section. The store responded by roping off the food section Monday mornings.
Until the 1950s, Toronto used to padlock the swings at playgrounds so they couldn’t be used on Sundays.
South Carolina had “Blue Laws” until the late 1980s or so. One man who owned a clothing store was arrested several times for daring to open and sell clothes on Sundays. That was the beginning of the end of (most) Blue Laws. Still can’t buy liquor for off-premises consumption on Sundays, and I think there’s a special liquor license restaurants have to pay to allow on-premises consumption.
Grocery stores would open, but certain things could not be bought. You could buy food, but not hardware stuff like kitchenware. Very few stores were open on Sundays because it was easier to just not open than worry about selling something illegal.
Whatever was the rationale for that? People gotta eat, every day.
Haven’t the foggiest idea.
I forget where in Canada I saw it, but at one time stores could not be open Sunday if they were bigger than X square feet public space and had more than 5 staff working. So the big grocery stores roped off a bunch of aisles and ran with only 5 empoyees interfacing with the public. So no meat counter (back when that was a thing) or deli service.
I’m going to guess that the logic was to give small stores some of a 5-day week. I lived in a small town long ago, the stores were closed Sunday (provincial laws) and Monday, because most staff were full time and that allowed small stores to have a 5-day week.
The Dan Block (Greater Tel Aviv) municipalities run their own weekend and holiday buses using chartered tour buses. They get around the law by being free - if they don’t charge money, they’re not technically public transportation or something. They’re cool; I use them to go to the beach in the summer.