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Things That Bug Me – Shop Opening Hours

Submitted by Pete on Sun, 09/10/2006 - 8:13pm.

Following on from my rant about dvd’s I have run into another thing that bugs me tonight – shop opening hours.

I’ve bin told that since time began Sunday was a day of rest, for religious folk it was time to go to church, for many others it was time for a lie in or participate in Sunday football leagues.

Shops were not allowed to open, in more recent years the government has been kind enough to let shops open for 6 hours on a Sunday. At the time people laughed thinking “who would want to shop on a Sunday”, well it turns out that my local Sainsbury’s is just as a busy in those 6 hours on a Sunday as it is most other days.

So why not let supermarkets and other shops open for as long as they like?

Why not have 24 hour shopping like we do for the rest of the week.?

It seems stupid to me that shops cant open for as long as they want, why does the government set opening hours anyway? Surely in such an economic environment opening hours should be set by demand rather than the state?

If people want to do shopping at 8pm on a Sunday (like I wanted to tonight) then it seems silly for shops not to be open to suite peoples needs. There may be problems at first in recruiting staff but people will soon warm to the idea and I’m sure unions will keep a close eye on working hours. All of this could be backed up by government legislation – not that it isn’t in place already for most working scenarios.

I can shop at Tesco’s online at 8pm on a Sunday but I can’t drive to my local store? It seems insane! Many people I know find shopping to be therapeutic, I quite enjoy going round my local Sainsbury’s discovering new food. And for people that want the money, let them work more on a Sunday.

Would I want to work Sundays – well it depends if they need IT consultants at the weekend but it doesn’t mean others wouldn’t want to work. When you see your week as 5 working days out of 7 it doesn’t matter which of those 5 days you work, many people already know that, why should shop workers be immune from working normal hours on a Sunday?

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Tue, 09/12/2006 - 10:11am Munger (not verified)

I had to write a big article thing on this at college. If I remember rightly the law is something like small shops can open all day (under 3000 square feet or something like that) large shops are restricted to six hours of business between the hours of 1000 to 1800.
But anywhere that is providing a "Service" are allowed to open all day no matter how big they are, Im not entirely sure how they define the word service but its places like hairdressers, service stations, pharmacies, restaraunts etc.

Wed, 09/13/2006 - 4:38pm pete (not verified)

Just as a follow up found this on the BBC site today about theatres trying to open more on a Sunday. I never knew it was such a problem that Theatres didn't open sundays too!

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