Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!stewartw
From: stewartw@cognos.UUCP (Stewart Winter)
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Re: Sunday shopping
Message-ID: <7753@cognos.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 89 17:21:30 GMT
References: <656@crk56.bnr.ca>
Reply-To: stewartw@cognos.UUCP (Stewart Winter)
Distribution: ont
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 86

In article <656@crk56.bnr.ca> janick@crk56.bnr.ca (Janick Bergeron 1617964) writes:

   My wife is retail.  My response is biased.  However, your remarks
were simply to outrageous to be ignored.

>While drunk drivers are crusing the city streets, while
>husbands a beating on their wife, while pushers are selling
>dope to our kids, what do the Ontario law enforcement agencies
>do ? They charge shops for opening on Sundays !!

  What an incredible statement.  The Nepean Police Force has ONE
constable with ONE car working on this.  This is an insanely small
percentage of their entire police force.  The City of Ottawa Police
currently has NO one performing this duty.  They are considering
putting an officer on this detail.  This is hardly a major problem
in the prevention of wife beating and drug dealing.

>How many times have I started to fix something in the house
>and find myself short of 6ft of 14 gage wire with no way to
>get some until the next day. Both my wife and I work M-F 8-5.
>We couldn't care less for the shops opening during these hours.

    Obviously you only care about yourself (or perhaps your wife also).  
More on that later.  Of course with a little bit of foresight and planning 
most of these situations can be avoided.  If it happens a lot you should 
consider becoming more organized.


>How can you justify, in a city like Ottawa or Toronto, where
>most of its work-force are white colar workers with similar
>working hours and often both men and women working, the forced
>closing of stores on Sundays ???

    Most of the work force, but not all.  This thing is certainly 
a slippery slope.  If I can shop on Sunday, why not banking on Sunday.
If I can bank on Sunday, why can't I get access to the government on
Sunday.  Where should the line be drawn?  I think it should be drawn
at ESSENTIAL services.  That seems to be covered off rather well right
now.

>Ottawa stores are closed M-W at 5pm. Nepean (south of Ottawa) has
>extended shopping hours M-W 'til 9pm. 

   Actually it's until 10:00 PM.  Over December all stores are opened every
night until 9:00 PM even in Ottawa.  Get the facts straight!

>Seeing how many people
>take advantage of those extended hours makes you wonder why
>stores cannot open on Sundays as well...And it's d*mn frustating
>to constantly having to remember that a particular store is north
>of baseline road thus closed at 5pm!!

    My wife works one night a week and gets one Saturday off per month.
She is a manager in a retail store.  I get to spend one day a week with
my wife.  But you don't care about that, do you.  Why should I care about
what you want?  There are thousands of families in this city in my shoes.
But you don't care about them, do you?  Is it too much to ask that I am able
spend one day a week with my wife and family?

    What will Sunday shopping result in besides broken families.  Well,
higher prices of course.  We won't really spend much more money (a little
bit, but not enough to offset the higher cost of doing business).  Few
commissioned staff will be able to afford to take more than one weekend
off a month, because Saturday and Sunday will be the prime days for them
to make money.  Some people believe that retail workers can work one
Saturday or Sunday per weekend, but if that's when the money is to be made
they can't.

    Quality of service will suffer. Many of the good personnel who can
get work in other businesses will leave the retail sector.  Those who have
no choice will remain behind.  

>I hope sunday shopping will be an issue at the next provincial
>and municipal elections !!

   It's already a municipal issue.  The Regional Municipality of
Ottawa-Carleton is firmly against Sunday shopping.  I thankfully
do not expect to see any change in this stance.

  Stewart Winter

-- 
Stewart Winter                Cognos Incorporated   S-mail: P.O. Box 9707
VOICE: (613) 738-1338 x3830   FAX: (613) 738-0002           3755 Riverside Drive
UUCP: uunet!cognos!stewartw                                 Ottawa, Ontario
"The bird for the day is .... nanday conure."               CANADA  K1G 3Z4