Sunday 8 March 2015

SUNDAY TRADING LAW IN ENGLAND

What a ridiculous situation in England where retail stores over a 280 square metre floor-space are forced to close their doors at the end of SIX HOURS continuous trading on Sunday.

This means that large stores, supermarkets etc., must close their doors by 4 p.m. if they started trading at 10 a.m.

The latest they can stay open is 6 p.m. if they started at midday but most stick at 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  The stores that advertise 24 hour opening have to comply with the Sunday law and thus they close at 4 p.m. and re-open at one minute past midnight on Monday.

This stupid law, some twenty years old now, makes no sense to me.  Employees are protected if they do NOT  wish to work on Sundays. An employee CANNOT be dismissed or treated in an unfavourable way for choosing not to work on Sundays.

This Sunday trading law seems to be something to do with religion, in my opinion.  If it is, then what about Jewish employees who are contracted to work on Saturdays?  If it is NOT about religion then what?  Why should Sunday be any different from the rest of the week.

All our political 'leaders' claim to be believers in God or some other deity as far as I know.   Most of them seem to me to be somewhat two-faced or downright liars.  If Janus were still a God, as the Romans once thought, then politicians would most likely kowtow to Janus, usually depicted with two faces!

Stuff the Sunday laws!

(I'm nipping out to Asda before they close!)

11 comments:

PhilipH said...

Please note that SCOTLAND has no such silly law!

All Consuming said...

I'm with you, and I always seem to remember I need that loaf of bread, or some other item at just gone 4pm!! It's silly, and makes no sense as you say.

You can disable the CAPTCHA thing in the settings, but that's a useful as I am at present *laughs*. It isn't making anyone type a code or letters though, just tick a box, so might be useful for keeping the spammers away. I seem to get them regularly, and the only reason I don't have CAPTCHA is that it used to make people type words that they couldn't see and there was a small uprising of protests from my friends. I'll put it back now! x

PhilipH said...

Cheers Michelle. Ta about CAPTCHA. I've just found that on some sites I ignore the 'Prove I'm not a robot' and simply click on Publish. Glad you're a tad happier today; keep it up.

The Bug said...

Reminds me of our Blue laws, which we've mostly done away with now!

PhilipH said...

Thanks Dana. Hopefully our silly law will be amended soon.

Snowbrush said...

I'm astounded that you have such laws. When I was kid, nothing but gas stations were open on Sundays, but all the "Blue Laws" have long since died a welcome death. What you wrote about employees not having to work if they don't want to makes it sound like staffing must be one heck of problem. If you all you to say is that God doesn't want you to work Sundays, wouldn't almost everyone say that, atheists included?

Another funny thing is I understand that you have laws against defaming religion. Does this mean that some of my posts could get me into trouble if I lived where you do?

PhilipH said...

As Mr. Bumble says: 'If that is the law Sir, then the law is a Ass' and he was spot on.

I'd guess that 80 per cent of employees don't give a toss about religion. Having a job and earning as much as possible is of greater importance.

This stupid law does NOT apply to betting shops! Just goes to show how idiotic things are. You cannot buy a pint of milk from Tesco after 4 p.m. on Sunday but you can walk into a bookies joint and blow your dough on a nag or play the roulette or Blackjack machines. Senseless.

As far as I know there is nothing to stop anybody from expressing their view about religion. There is, of course, a lot of 'political correctness' in this country. One is not supposed to use certain words for fear of disrespecting or offending people by using words which, during the 1950s and 1960s were commonplace.
Freedom of speech is thus not as free as it once was.

Fram Actual said...

I came, I saw, I joined.

I guess I will not comment on your Sunday trading laws, but I will say (having read a few of your posts) that I envy you your boyhood sights in the skies over England. Better to have been a boy and witnessed the Battle of Britain, I think, than an adult with all the problems and worries that come with adulthood.

I will be back, Phil ....

PhilipH said...

Thank you Fram A.
You are spot on about being a kid during WW2. From my experience it was more exciting than scary. It did seem that our biggest worry was would we get something to eat each day! The adults had to solve that problem and they adults had far more to be scared of than we kids.
Very glad you dropped in. Phil

Snowbrush said...

Your response to Fram provided an interesting perspective, Philip. I didn't see any wars, although I was old enough to have gone to Vietnam--and would have too if I hadn't done everything I could to avoid it--but I did grow up in the Deep South during America's Civil Rights period, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

It just hit me that I don't tell my readers nearly enough how much they mean to me. You and All Consuming are my only regular readers from England, so you not only mean a lot to me as friends, but the fact that you live in another country gives you memories and a perspective that is necessarily different from mine, and I am ever so grateful to you.

Love,
Snow

PhilipH said...

Cheers Snowy. War seems to be a 'natural' way of life in this world, always has been and likely to be so forever. Religion and all the 'gods' and 'prophets' are prime movers behind it all. :-(