To think Sunday trading hours is silly

[iguano88]

Everyone waiting at the self service and normal checkouts from 10:45, with full baskets and trolleys (shop was open for browsing but Sunday hours 11-5). Staff then opened all the tills at exactly 11 but not a minute before.

Why do we still only open large shops for 6 hours on a Sunday? 11 seems really late to open. There’s a blend of religions in society and more people need hours at work, Sunday evenings would suit students or parents who need to work opposing hours to their other half for childcare reasons. The more I think about it the sillier it is. I also think it adds to the ‘Sunday scaries’ people experience.

AIBU to think it should just be abolished and business as usual?

But if the argument is that restricting Sunday trading hours is for the benefit of the staff, what about the staff at the ruddy convenience store?

7pm Sunday and you've forgotten something. Just pop out to the ruddy convenience storr!!

What about the staff that work there? Or those that work at the pub/cinema/anywhere else that's open on a Sunday evening?

Lived in the US for awile. Grocery stores are open 6am to 9pm daily, 7 days a week.

100%
At 4.30pm on a Sunday the whole place shuts down (and I'm not in some rural backwater), it impractical and depressing.

There’s a million co ops and Tesco expresses etc that close at 10/11 if your really that desperate!

Or as a customer don't go during browsing time if you don't want to?

I'm in Scotland and you can legally opt out of working Sundays.

And as I and orders have pointed out, they all need to be staffed! Why is it vital that other supermarket workers get time off, but not those who work in the convenience store arms of these companies?

I've worked in retail for 30 years and Sunday is just another day. The only problem is that the buses are hourly instead of every 20 minutes.

You can't cope for one day? Really?

I'm not a Christian but I do recognise that Easter is more important than Christmas to Christians.

It bears no relevance to the point of this thread.

What ARE the Sunday scaries?!

👏

Yes. This with bells 🔔 on

God help us if we can't organise ourselves with the hours as they are whatever hours one works, there is in addition the ability to phone for emergency supplies of whatever has been forgotten.

They'll be closed next Sunday.

But barely 2% of the UK population regularly attend church. It isn’t about “coping” without the shops being open - it’s whether religion should still dictate it.

That’s another thing! It’s ridiculous that we still have Sunday services on buses in the daytime nearly 30 years after they introduced Sunday trading.

And me. If retail workers are working longer on a Sunday, we need to reduce that legislatively too. Otherwise we'll get into the same situation as the states where retail/cinemas are open Christmas day.

We shouldn't have retail Christmas Day/Boxing Day and Easter Sunday.

Our buses are also hourly with no Sunday service

I'm pretty sure if shops were open longer companies would simply re-write contracts or demand more of their current staff rather than employ extra people to staff the longer hours as some people seem to think.

There would be no point opening longer if it wasn't profitable, it would be for tesco etc benefit rather than the customer.

When I was late teens I used to work as an apprentice Monday-Friday and in a department store on Saturday and Sunday. Most of the full time staff in my department, opted out of Sunday working (it was fairy new - late 1990s) so it was me and another very junior member of staff in...and almost no customers. We got paid time and a half for Sundays, evenings and BHs ....but that's not the case any more, I'm pretty sure Sundays and Bank hols are just a standard working day in retail now.

Why not, if businesses want to open, staff want to work, and people want to use the businesses?

Yep Demand that supermarkets open these extra hours but not things like GP services and walk ins.

Get your priorities right FFS

Don't forget, anyone in England can't go into any large shop this Sunday because they're all closed!

Good. It's a day to differentiate.

“FFS”, at least try to understand the basics of the argument. No one is saying a supermarket is more important than a walk-in medical centre. The point is that shops are legally restricted from opening at certain times. THAT is what people are arguing against.

Anyway, it’s hardly an “either or” scenario, is it? Longer opening hours for supermarkets doesn’t prevent a doctors’ surgery opening for longer - unless you think GPs will all quit to unload palettes of tinned tomatoes in Asda if the extra hours become available?

Who has forgotten?