Am I the only person left who admires companies which have the backbone and/or courage to STAY CLOSED on major holidays? (And Sundays, too, for that matter?)
Everywhere I look, retailers, restaurants, and just about every other entity looking to pad its balance sheet are now keeping open store hours on what used to be lights-off-and-doors-locked holidays. A glance through my local Sears store’s Sunday circular shows the bold print of…
(where permitted by law)
… and it occurs to me this practice really seems to be getting more and more pervasive.
For a retailer like Sears, I suppose it’s understandable. I feel a bit sorry for the employees, though I imagine they’re getting “holiday pay” or overtime or whatever for dragging themselves out of the house and slogging in to work on Turkey Day. What boggles me is that there are that many consumers who’ll shop on Thanksgiving, given the way we’ve stamped the day after Thanksgiving as, effectively, a Festival of Consumption. When folks are willing to camp out for prime shopping spots nine days ahead of time … well, it’s pathetic.
What About Sundays?
In my neck of the woods, there are still several businesses who won’t open up on Sundays, though their profits would almost assuredly rise if they did so. While I’m not the religious sort, I truly admire these guys. By marking Sundays as no-work days, companes like Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby are telling me that yes, there IS something they hold more valuable than additional revenue. I, for one, am wholeheartedly glad to see it.
If you’re in dire need of a Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich, but it’s Sunday afternoon … well, tough s*$t. Odds are good they’ll be open Monday. And they’ll still be happy to make you a sammich and waffle fries then.
Melissa Tosetti wrote:
I live in Northern California and am surprised at the amount of businesses that are closed on Sundays. Although it can be frustrating, like you, I admire them for taking a day off.
We have evolved into a 24/7 culture which is… exhausting. Kudos to those who are, at the very least, closed on Thanksgiving!
Melissa Tosetti
MBTN wrote:
The county where I live still has “blue laws”. Most stores are not allowed by law to be opened on Sunday. One city within our county goes a step further and says that no store can opened before 7am, which eliminates any Black Friday midnight openings.
Obviously the law was started because of religious reasons, but the main reason why it continues to this day is because the people want to have one day without traffic and crowds. There have been several referenda to eliminate the blue laws but all of them have failed.
I will say that these blue laws do cause some inconvienence to Jews who observe the Sabbath (which is sundown Friday to sundown Saturday). They can’t shop on Saturday until sundown (which can be quite late in the summer) and they can only shop on Sunday by going to an neighboring county where stores are opened on Sundays, too.