To think that when this is all over, we should restrict Sunday trading again.

[TheoriginalLEM]

Just that really. Sunday's used to be special because all but the corner shop was closed and it encouraged an actual break. Now the weekends are gone in a flash and we're back on the treadmill.

This situation is making me reflective and wanting to slow down.

What a completely Monday to Friday, 9 - 5 view of things. Life isn't like that. Even religious people enjoy B&Q on a Sunday so 'keeping Sundays special' for the Christians is totally unnecessary.

If you want a day doing nothing, then do nothing.

I don't understand, why can't you pretend the shops are closed and treat them like German Sundays if that's what floats your boat

Because it's not the same! Having a day when no shops are open means that it changes the whole dynamic of what people do and it really becomes a change to restore and recharge your batteries.

When I was a shift worker (not retail) the day people really wanted off was Saturday. Nobody minded working Sunday!

But you're trying to tell other people how they should recharge and restore - by legal restrictions.

How can you office worker 9-5ers not see that limiting other people's ability to shop doesn't mean they'll experience it in the same way as you would?

Would we be bringing back the stupid rules about what you could and couldn’t sell too?

You could sell magazines but you couldn’t sell books. So you could buy Playboy but not the bible.
You could buy fruit but not tools. What the diy stores started doing was selling an orange. You got all the stuff you needed and then when you got to the till you bought an orange that cost exactly the same as all the stuff you needed and all that stuff came free with the orange.
What an arse ache if all the DIY shops were shut too.

I live in Switzerland, everything and I mean everything bar the bakery is closed on Sundays. It is a royal pain in the ass. It means I have one day to get things done as I work full time. If I’m cooking and need an ingredient or one of the kids gets sick on a Sunday I can’t just nip out to buy onions or calpol or whatever.
Also a rainy Sunday is like hell. Nothing to do and nowhere to go.
I would love the shops to be open even a few hours on a Sunday. It would make a huge difference to us.

I agree, close the shops but have leisure facilities open like zoos, theme parks etc

What would closing shops but having leisure facilities open achieve?

Where I grew up Sundays we’re f-ing boring. Nothing open, nothing to do but go to church. You have the choice to sit around all day on a Sunday if you like, personally I like being able to go to the library and run errands or go to the cinema on my day off.

I worked in retail and if you worked Sat or Sunday ( slightly shorter hours) you got your day off in the week which I really loved, having a day off when it was quieter to do stuff.

@TheoriginalLEM. It's not 'daft' to wish that life was a bit slower 🌷

Unfortunately it would take much more than just closing the shops on a Sunday. It would be nice to think that collectively we'd have learnt something from this lockdown about how our lives are too hectic and too pressured to do too much. Unfortunately I expect not.

The German rules about Sunday's seemed so archaic, but now they actually sound quite nice to me! Obviously we can all
Choose not to do things ourselves,but it's nice when there's no expectation from everyone else.

I can understand some people wanting to work Sundays (childcare/study reasons etc) & that after this the economy does need to be active, but I wish there was some compromise 🤷🏻‍♀️

Why Sundays - why not any other day. What makes Sunday's special?

In an ideal world I would like to see Sunday trading 10-6pm but employees only working if they want to and it being paid at an enhanced rate. Wishful thinking I know

I work in care so 24hrs. Many people choose to work the weekends due to preference of having a week day off and/or family dynamics.

I work shifts.

You do 'Keep Sundays Special' and go to your corner shop, I'll do shopping for next week's lunches at Aldi, Iceland and Sainsbury's thank you.

Can someone please tell me why just shops should be shut on s
Sundays to give retail staff a rest and spend time with their families.

What about cinemas, pubs, resaurants, etc. People still work in them, but retail staff seem to have some kind of monopoly on being hard done to for having to work Sundays.

Only if it's part of an overall economic re-balance and appraisal of what's important to us. One common day of rest as part of a 4 day working week might work, but difficult to see Keep Sunday Special becoming popular again if there's no other change to working practices.

You’d have to close MN too then on a Sunday, because obviously it’s not fair if their staff have to work on Sunday.

The Sunday trading laws in England are a ridiculous anachronism which pander to a tiny unrepresentative minority of religious people.

Shop workers are not a special case. Lots of other non-essential workers in the leisure, catering and hospitality industries work on Sundays as normal, too.

If some people don’t want to shop on Sundays, fine. The rest of us should be allowed to do whatever we want.

Scotland had no Sunday restrictions and shops are open as if it’s a normal day. As a student I loved it I worked Saturday and Sunday, without my Sunday hours I would have seriously struggled to afford to continue my course. There will be many weekend workers who are students, fitting round their partner for childcare etc. Don’t be so bloody blinkered.

I'm 50/50 on one hand I think the world has moved on so much in terms of peoples working hours we need sunday opening.
On the other hand though I used to hate having to give up my weekends with my dc due to working.
I think I'm leaning towards keeping them open but maybe staffing differently so each employee gets at least one off. There could always be an opt out clause like there is for working over (I think) 45 hours a week.

My teens want weekend work. I'm sure many students do.

You are in charge of your own life. Make it your own, don't wait for the herd.

I work in retail but Sunday is the only day my DH and i have off together, its our day to go for coffee, shopping a meal etc together, fuck everything being closed!!

Someone posted from the other perspective last week, that we should keep retail open on a Sunday after Covid and she got a pasting - MN is very contrary isn't it! It seems everyone's up for a fight. 😬🤣