If you’ve followed local news, you may have heard about the Sunday Shopping battle between the major grocery chains (‘Sobeys’ and ‘SuperStore’)1 and the provincial government.
Currently, only stores that have less than 4,000 square feet of retail space are allowed to open on Sundays, which covers most corner stores, gas stations and even (recently) locally owned supermarkets and fresh produce stores. I’m not sure why exactly the two major chains decided to open up their stores, but it must be because of those particular fresh produce stores which have been popping up around town and province.
Sobeys released the following statement about this (way over a month ago that is)2:
“Our customers and our business have been greatly disadvantaged by closing on Sunday, while other retailers of groceries in the Province continue to operate. We are left with no choice but to, once again, reconfigure these stores to comply with the new Sunday shopping regulations in order to compete and serve our customers on this increasingly un-level playing field.”
So, today, one of Sobeys in town will open up shop. I don’t think a lot of people care about if Sunday Shopping should be allowed or not. I presume most Canadians are used to the Sunday shopping phenomenon, but for some kind of reason, I don’t see myself load up my shopping cart on a Sunday. Running to a store for a Mars bar, because of certain cravings, now, that’s a different thing.
Update: Grocers (once again) take Sunday shopping to the court (08/31/06)
1 Names appropriately enclosed in quotes. For no particular reason. Or, whatever.
2 Sobeys’ announcements can be found here.