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From: acton@mprvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Sunday openings
Message-ID: <810@mprvaxa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Dec-86 11:17:07 EST
Article-I.D.: mprvaxa.810
Posted: Fri Dec  5 11:17:07 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Dec-86 05:23:03 EST
References: <2819@watdcsu.UUCP> <708@looking.UUCP> <605@ubc-cs.UUCP> <709@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: acton@mprvaxa.UUCP (Don Acton)
Distribution: can
Organization: Microtel Pacific Research, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Lines: 43

In article <709@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>Consider your local supermarket.  Saturday is such an incredibly busy
>day right now.  It's the only day the parking lot is full.  In fact, with
>Sunday shopping, they might get away with a parking lot 1/2 the size!
>
>The savings apply not just to the market but to the city.  Saturday
>shopping traffic (and downtown parking) is strongly reduced.  Remember
>that so much of our resources are allocated for peak load (Saturday) and
>not just average load.  The savings can be tremendous.

Living here in Lotus land where we have had Sunday shopping for three
or four years I am not convinced that peak load in the downtown area is
reduced because of Sunday shopping and mall parking lots always seem to
be full on Sundays so someone (merchants + customers) must benefitting.
The one point that has been alluded to in the various articles but not
spelled out is that stores are suppose to exist for customers. To me
that means they should be open when it is convenient for the customers.
It seems to me rather ironic that in the past most service industries
have kept hours that make it very difficult for the average working
person to get to a store or a bank, for example. I recall the days when
normal banking hours were from 10:00 to 3:00 and if you were lucky they
might be open until 6:00 on Friday. Is it any wonder there were huge
lineups on Friday afternoons? As far as I am concerned this is the same
type of service I get from a store that doesn't stay open late or on
Sundays. To buy something I am expected to either rush to the business
on the way home from work or on Saturdays and then spend my time in some
huge lineup because everyone else is doing the same thing. The name of
the game is suppose to be customer service and it is continually harped
about in the various consumer columns of newspapers but no one seems to
interested in providing it. 

One thing I have noticed is that store hours during the week seem to
have been reduced since Sunday shopping has been allowed. Typically
stores used to be open from 9:00 or 9:30 to 6:00 and now it is more
likely to be 10:00 to 6:00. So the question is, have merchants just
shifted this extra 5 shopping hours to Sunday where it is more
profitable? (On Sunday most stores are open from around noon to 5) Why
though does working on Sunday single out merchants? People in the
restaurant, hotel, entertainment and telephone industries all work on
Sundays to some degree. Why does the government pick on merchants and not
on the employers in these other industries? 

  Donald Acton