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?

Somehow people managed to find things to do when I was growing up and nothing was open on Saturdays or Sundays.

If people can't think of anything to do other than shop then something in the world has gone seriously wrong.

Working in hospitality for me, Sunday is just another day. No extra pay. I'm happy to not have the traditional 'weekend' and I'm flexible with my working hours and days... I actually prefer my days off being during quieter periods!

I know they'll be people who work in the nhs or hospitality who work Sundays and weekends, but I'd be interested how many people wanting longer Sunday trading hours would want their own work pattern to be any 5 days of 7 including sundays and bank holidays?

Oh ffs...i'm sure we can all cope without Tescis on Easter Sunday. Lets work our retail staff harder still shall we? After all they are our servants.

Tescos*

They're closed for a few hours on one day of the week. It's hardly a major inconvenience.

Wonder if we’re able to access @iguano88 company 24/7, and if not, why not? It would be so much more convenient if we could…!

I've lived in places that have tight rules about Sunday openings, and those that are more relaxed. Increased retail on weekends really seems to kill recreation clubs. They still exist, but aren't nearly as popular or vibrant.

The poster I was responding to said everything should be closed on a Sunday. Of course people can find something to do other than shop - but not if everything is closed.

Do at least read the post you’re quoting properly.

I’m in my 40s and can remember when local shops closed at 2pm on a Sunday and supermarkets were open 12-4pm.

we lived in a little village and can remember as a young girl running to the local shop at 1.50pm before it closed to get gravy for our roast dinner as mum had forgotten it at the “big shop”.

Totally agree. It's ridiculous, outdated and unnecessary, not to mention bloody annoying.

Once again for those in the cheap seats - this is NOT about organisation. It’s about whether, in the 21st century, the government should still be legally preventing businesses from setting their own opening hours.

I think during covid supermarkets did employ extra staff for deliveries etc, but in a lot of jobs the extra duties needed (cleaning, managing queues etc ) were just absorbed by the staff already there.

If shops opened longer hours I very much doubt they'd be hiring students or whoever just from 5pm- 10pm on a Sunday or mums with young kids to do the 6am -11 Sunday shift....what would more likely happen would be that everyone's rota would include shifts that covered those hours and then the staff would be spread more thinly during the rest of the time.

See friends, see family, go for a walk, do a puzzle at home - there are so many things that don't require shops!

We would do a lot better as a society if people spent more time having fun and less time shopping. Sunday trading kills regular meet up groups. People don't join them even if they are only working one in 4 Sundays, because the y feel as if they can't commit.

We aren't. We are a constitutional monarchy where our monarch is head of the state religion and senior members of that religion sit in our legislature.

As a Christian obviously restricting working on Sunday is something I agree with on religious grounds. However, far more importantly for most people, it is good for retail workers' well-being by restricted anti-social hours on one day a week.

As others have said, find something to do on a Sunday rather than indulging your shopping habit. There are still shops open to get essentials and you can still go to a pub or restaurant.

I sort of agree with this. It means people are guaranteed that time off.

If shops were open I’m sure they’d find ways to lean on people to work that time when it doesn’t actually suit them. When they want to be with family. Just look at the “shift wars” that seem to go on whenever there’s a bank holiday or similar. I think best to let everyone have the day off tbh. I don’t think a National “day of rest” is a bad thing - albeit I know emergency workers have to work.

Very few other people only have Sunday off and have it as the only time they can shop - plus there’s delivery.

I think it is about organisation to a large extent.

It’s usually only when people are disorganised that they absolutely have to get to the shops immediately on a particular day and “find it annoying” when they can’t.

There should be emergency pharmacies open on a Sunday though- weirdly the one shop that doesn’t even seem to be open on a Sunday - the one you might actually need and not through disorganisation.

I really don’t understand any of the defence of the stupid English Sunday trading laws. A big Tesco is only allowed to open for 6 hours, but a small Tesco can open as long as the company likes. Hospitality is open (often every single day of the year, with far more ‘unsociable’ hours). You can shop online at any hour of the day - and you can have an Amazon food delivery arrive outside the hours large supermarkets are restricted to.

There really is no proper logic to it at all. It doesn’t protect retail workers - unless you don’t think people who work on smaller shops matter as much. Or you ignore the people who would actually prefer a Sunday evening shift - that would work better for their family life.

It’s ridiculous. Indefensible really. But people will insist on making the same arguments full of holes and comparing us to Germany.

Although they conveniently edit out the other things the Germans outlaw on Sundays.

Or we could ask, ad a modern society, whose wellbeing we are giving a higher priority - giant international corporations, or the health and wellbeing of our teens and young adults (who are often the people in these jobs).

I'm waiting for the surprised and disgruntled threads when people discover shops are closed on Easter Sunday. Like it's a new thing.

Oh yeah we are judging 😂

I've been caught in England on a Sunday
If we are on holiday I always forget the supermarket isn't open at 7pm.

It’s usually only when people are disorganised that they absolutely have to get to the shops immediately on a particular day and “find it annoying” when they can’t.

The biggest problem with these debates is the moralising tone people adopt about shopping.

Of course they do, when the debate has been couched in religious moralising from the get go.

If you take the weird sneering about shopping as some kind of vice, then all you have is a set of legislative restrictions that apply in a largely unprincipled manner that was designed for another era.

Is working in Asda so much worse for young adults wellbeing than working in McDonald’s or Wetherspoons or vue cinemas or the Amazon warehouse packing shopping? What about the people working on Sunday till late in the Sainsbury’s local - is that different?

Again, moralised nonsense that ignores reality.

My teens would happily take on a job that would mean working on a Sunday.
Forget family time. They spend a large amount of it in bed currently but would get up for a money making reason.