“Two Apple Stores in Bergen County, New Jersey are devising a way of getting around local ‘blue’ laws preventing shops from opening on Sundays, sources say,” MacNN reports.
“While the state technically abolished such restrictions in 1959, local jurisdictions were allowed to enforce their own laws favoring religions with Sunday observances,” MacNN reports. “The Garden State Plaza Apple Store in Paramus and the Tice’s Corner outlet in Woodcliff Lake are said to be Apple’s only US retail sites not open on Sundays.”
MacNN reports, “The stores are said to be planning to only offer services on Sundays, rather than products, since local blue laws are directed mostly at sales of goods.”
Full article here.
Damn! Even Texas got rid of their Blue Laws over twenty-five years ago. Somebody needs to sue those clowns and get rid of them.
I believe if there are laws set in place you need to abide by them. I love apple but they think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want but they are not above the law and especially not above God, whats the big deal with taking sunday off to go to church? These days I question so many things
IT’S THEIR STATE. LET THEM DO AS THEY PLEASE!! DAMN LIBERAL!
Anthony, if Apple isn’t selling stuff that is illegal, then there’s no problem, and Apple IS abiding by the law.
Try reading next time.
ridiculous- should be challenged in court – hours of operation should be controlled by local government for what constitutional purpose in this case? I can’t think of one
I bet stores in that county in NJ were open in the middle of the night for Black Friday.
ridiculous
dpr1861, (is that the year you’re stuck in?)
There are plenty of folks that are not religious. The Constitution SPECIFICALLY states that the government cannot favor religion in making laws, and it has been shown numerous times in several States that blue laws are Constitutionally illegal, because they discriminate in favor of religion.
If you want to go to church, then go. Let those that would rather shop do that. What is wrong with personal freedom? I thought conservatives were in favor of personal freedom and against the Government telling them what to do?
Hypocrite.
Anthony – cant tell if you are joking but not everyone is the same religion or worships on Sundays at a church and even so, having a store open does not mean that others can’t go to church if they want to, shopping is optional any day
I wonder if there are any casinos or strip clubs in those counties in NJ and I wonder if they are open on Sunday.
A little theme music for Mac fans in Jersey…
… enjoy!
I think Apple should be able to not only sell Macs on Sunday, but also booze. And the employees should be strippers and prostitutes. Damn those holy rollers to hell.
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And I thougth Provo Utah was bad. Hell, these people make the people in Provo look liberal.
@Lord of Darkness: I like the way you think.
@ Athoney
“whats the big deal with taking sunday off to go to church? “
Maybe I went to synagog on saturday? Should we close the stores on Saturday too?
“I believe if there are laws set in place you need to abide by them.”
I believe Apple stores ARE abiding by them. They are selling services not products.
@ploogman
“I wonder if there are any casinos or strip clubs in those counties in NJ and I wonder if they are open on Sunday.”
Hmm, wouldn’t casinos and clubs offer services and not products and thus be okay?
What is this, France?
@rwahrens
You are wrong. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This only prevented the FEDERAL government from forming a sanctioned RELIGION. It did not prevent the STATES from having a state-sponsored religion (e.g. Massachusetts until 1833). It also does not prevent any level of government from enacting laws which have a religious ethic behind them.
There are many municipal laws which are based on religious values which are still upheld as constitutional such as modesty laws.
The interpretation of the 1st amendment has taken broader meaning through CASE LAW, but what you are talking about is not implicit or explicit in the constitution, sorry.
I suspect that these municipalities may regulate hours of operation. They already do that for a whole variety of businesses. And, if the law doesn’t state a reason for it, I believe it is constitutional. If Apple can find a legal way to have the stores remain open, then that’s right, too. They could always sue the municipalities themselves but it doesn’t sound like they want to do that.
I live in Bergen county NJ. I think they should have Apple Stores open on a Sunday. However all 3 locations are in a mall. It’s pretty stupid to open up an entire mall just for an Apple store. It’s bad for other businesses who like to keep their stores closed.
Don’t be silly, jmmx. Anthony is a typical holy roller who believes Christianity is the only path, so only it deserves the day off. Silly Jews… They killed Christ. Every single one did, even ones born today.
I hope people understand I’m being sarcastic. Sad I have to point that out.
Dumb. No other word for it.
@Pqrs I am in no ways a holy roller. Im a firm believer in christ yes.. but I get out, I party and drink with the best of them. I just believe that if there is a law stating that you cannot open a store on a sunday, especially if its a damn mall, why try to get around it, theyre sitting on the second largest stack of cash in the world right now. Its funny how nobody believes there is a God anyway. Go out and take a look at ANYTHING and youll be able to tell something hand crafted the things before you. Call me whatever you want. I know when I got saved, my life was changed, you dont see me putting you down yet your hatefully downing something I believe. Im happier than ive ever been and its because I have Jesus in my life.. You DO have the right to believe what you want though
Just in case you hadn’t heard – there is NO GOD! No worries, we all will still endure and prosper.
One Day No Religion
http://february20.org/
MW: anything As in anything is possible without god.
I’m not sure why you all are talking about amendments! Commandments are critical here. From the second stone tablet,
which Moses broke because he thought God had totally just lost his mind, but now makes sense.
11th commandment: Thou shalt not buy electronics or software on Sunday, only have them serviced or repaired.
12th commandment: Thou shalt not take yourself so seriously as to not enjoy things like, oh, living your life, including Sunday purchases of electronics BTW, this is religion – contradictory things are not only fine, they are encouraged to confuse and obfuscate the masses
13th commandment: Thou shalt not spend all day in church on Sundays. Most services are only an hour – why the hell are you still hanging around after?!?! I have stuff to do. I gave you the great outdoors and NJ strip malls – go enjoy them!
14th commandment: Thou shalt not think I am such a preening idiot that doing anything but worshipping me on Sundays insults me. I am not a 13 year old girl.
15th commandment: Thou shalt not think that you know what I am thinking and make incredibly silly rules based on that. Just be a good person. I know following rules makes it easy to not worry about things like ethics and morality on your own, but come on! It is not that hard!
There is no circumvention here, idiot. They are following the law, period.
anaknipedro;
I am afraid you are sadly behind in that law you tout so handily.
Localities ARE covered under the First Amendment, their was an amendment, the 14th, I think, that applies Constitutional restrictions of that kind to the states and localities.
Those modesty laws are not based upon religion, but on local moral standards, which are quite different, legally, from religious standards. And many local laws that allow things or restrict things based upon religious ideals get kicked to the curb quite often when taken to court. It is just that there are often no local people with the money to take it to court.
As I said, blue laws in several States have been either taken to court and struck down as unconstitutional or dumped by the States themselves for similar reasons.
States ARE bound by the First Amendment. You are thinking about the Articles of Confederation, in which the States were superior to the Feds, but in our modern Constitution, that is reversed.
D’oh, I meant “there was” not “their was”…
@Pqrs. I saw the sarcasm
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />, you forgot, we are ALL sinners because a long time ago someone ate fruit from a tree in a garden. So there ya go.
I’m glad the rational reaction to the idea that some areas still have blue laws is amazement. Since there isn’t any agreement on when the sabath should be celebrated anyway it’s all really silly. But if there was a rational argument for the existence of god there would be no atheists
We are already in digital age and yet there are still many with stone age mind set!!
Read Ayn Rand !!!!!
What about separation of church and STATE?
So we are given separation of church and Fed.
That’s not enough.
@rwahrens – spot on!
@Anthony – keep questioning! Someday you might even hit the correct question. But will you arrive at the correct answer (hint: separation of church and state).
It is amazing to me that people can argue against “government mandates” and “regulation” in one breath, then uphold a government mandate in another because it fits in with their belief system. That is *not* how the Constitution was designed or intended to be implemented.
@anaknipedro – our interpretations may not be explicit in the Constitution, but case law indicates that it *is* implicit. It is certainly in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution.
Bergen County claims that their infrastructure is so overloaded and overburdened that they can’t have businesses open on Sunday. Which is patently ridiculous, because that means that Saturdays are traffic hellholes there.
Dated article here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE0D61339F937A35752C1A962948260
Even if the boneheads running Bergen county don’t have religion as their basis for this asinine law, they are in violation of the equal protection clause of the US constitution. If you want to ban all commerce, fine, but why are movie theaters, gas stations and supermarkets allowed to operate there on Sundays? And churches, for that matter.
Attention all shoppers: Be advised that you do need a visa to enter and shop in New Jersey.
Posts with a religious and / or political angle = controversy = bickering = hits = ad revenue = displays of wealth = blowjobs
It’s all so very linear. A tip of the hat to the webmaster. Well done, sir. Well done.
If the various Christian Churches can have Services on Sundays, why can’t Apple have services on Sundays?
rwahrens, obviously your liberal opinion is federalism, trying to force a state to follow others. I do not live in NJ, but I believe if the residents of NJ feel they should repel their blue laws, it’s their right, not people of other states who obviously have their 401k’s at interest. That’s all I’m saying.
Here’s an experiment I did with my retail store (a gift and home decor store). We started it being closed on Sundays. Soon we needed business to be better and the consensus was that we should open on Sunday. My wife was against this idea saying that people shop when stores are open and we dont need to be open on Sundays.
Well, we opened on Sundays anyhow and my wife was right. Sales we would have made during the week shifted to the weekend, namely Sunday, and the net gain was ZERO. Businesses dont need to be open on Sundays, especially destination stores.
Apple Stores dont need to be open on Sunday either for the same reason – they are a destination store. Profits for Apple Stores would increase if they close a day, or even two, a week.
@anaknipedro:
As someone else pointed out, the First Amendment (and most of the rest of the Bill of Rights) has been incorporated against the state (and local) governments by the passage of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. It happened quite a while ago, you should probably catch up. And yes, the fact that the 14th Amendment forces the states to respect the First Amendment (and other) rights was established by the Supreme Court. Why is that legitimate? Because our country has always been a common law jurisdiction, where courts are called upon to interpret and “fill in the gaps” in our laws. The alternative would be a civil law system, where every last detail of our lives must be legislated, as in France. Do you want to trade our legal system for France’s?
Blue Laws are stupid. Who does it really protect? They are really more of an inconvenience.
I live in Las Vegas, and you can’t buy a car on Sundays! All the dealerships are closed. In most cities, that is probably the busiest day to buy a car. Nothing else stops, you can still blow all your money on the casinos.
Yea, blue laws are really effective!
So, Apple cannot be open on Sundays to satisfy the Christian sabbath. Well, therefore, Jews and Muslims (whose sabbath is not Sunday) and atheists, secularists, agnostics, unchurched, and the generally curmudgeonly like me should be able to shop all they want. Just make the Apple store off limits to Christians on Sunday. Oh wait, what about the Seventh Day Adventists, a Christian sect that worships on Saturdays? Do we need to issue religious identity cards? Will the Supreme Court strike such cards down?
The situation I’ve sketched above illustrates the total stupidity of Blue Laws and the theocratic governments that create them, thus violating the rights of some for the benefits of one.
Isn’t there supposed to be a separation of church and state in the U.S.?
@maclouie,
There’s a good chance that people got used to the thought that you were closed on Sundays and didn’t go to your store anymore. Perhaps new potential customers were lost never to return. Perhaps other stores in the area also closed on Sundays and that affected your results.
The point here is that you can’t apply your experiment with one single store of one single type to a broad category of businesses all throughout the country.
I’ve managed a variety of businesses. Some where busiest on Sundays, and being closed meant losing most of the revenue for the day as customers would not come back.
Other stores were slower on Sundays, but the customers that came in could only come in on Sundays.
Some stores were slow on Sundays, and customers could’ve come in whenever, but were annoyed by us being closed on Sundays and took their business elsewhere.
Also, very often with stores, if it’s slow on Sunday, you can have reduced staff and use the opportunity to clean, inventory, etc…
Whatever the case, each business should be free to decide what’s best for their business. The only time there should be a law for businesses to be closed on Sundays is if there’s a local reason pertaining to reduction in traffic, noise, tourists or whatever in a community that wants one day to themselves. This is much different from forcing businesses to close because Jesus, Santa Clause, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster says so.
People are free to go to church if they like.
What I object to is them trying to make the rest of us follow, which is obviously what the Sunday trading laws are all about.
Used to be the same in England in the 60s. Sunday was as dead as Calvin Cool. The only excitement was listening to the priest at Mass, going on about homosexuals.
You are free to have your religion please leave me to do what I want. My shopping does not impact your desire to practice your belief.
Live and let live… I guess Christianity was never good at that since it is easier to slaughter and obliterate anyone who does not share their belief system. SAD
@REVELATOR
I live in Bergen County, and traffic IS a hellhole the rest of the week, particularly during December. I don’t know about infrastructure being overloaded, but it is a quality of life issue for the people that live here surrounded by malls. There are five major ones within 4 miles of each other.
If you want to talk about equal protection, the people here have voted down repealing the blue laws every time it has been put on a ballot referendum. The people that live here should have rights too.
A day off every week is a good thing for people. Places, not so much.
If they want, revise the Blue Law to make it so people don’t work 7 days a week. They limit pilots and truck drivers. The Blue Laws are a stretch of power for governments that were Oked by the local people. (It should be put up for vote every 10 or 12 years.)
In the end, Apple does not work the people 24/7 and not all people can get to a store Monday to Saturday. Those are the days they work too.
Do not do unto others what is hateful to you. The rest is commentary. Go and learn it.
dpr1961;
Federalism is the basis of our system. You obviously never took civics in high school, or you’d know this. The first amendment is the first one because it enshrined the three basic freedoms on which our government is founded – freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion. It is settled case law that these three freedoms are protected from interference from ALL THREE levels of government.
States are able to legislate and control their affairs WITHIN their own borders, EXCEPT in cases where they impinge upon Federal powers, or contradict the Constitution.
States and local governments CANNOT violate the provisions of the first amendment, period, no matter how much they’d like to.
This is according to the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, and not the Articles of Confederation, which you have obviously confused with the currently valid document.
We are talking about New Jersey, right? Isn’t Atlantic City in New Jersey? Isn’t the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey? Pretty sure they are open on Sundays, and what you can “buy” in AC can’t even be discussed in church… Guess there really is no need to make any “how many law suits for doing what?” priest comments… Hypocrites and idiots. If there actually was a God, she’d be disgusted…
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
There has been an on/off debate over the meaning of the phrase for over 100 years. In the 1880’s a new interpretation was introduced: Congress can make religious laws as long as it does not create a national church or discriminate against other churches. This view was defeated back in the 1880s-1890s. The view has reappeared in the last twenty years with the contract with America.
The solution to this dilemma is in the language. Congress cannot make a law respecting the establishment OF religion. In other words, congress cannot make a law involving religion.
A good book on the reasons for this amendment is “Our First Revolution” by Michael Barone.
http://www.amazon.com/Our-First-Revolution-Remarkable-Upheaval/dp/1400097932/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296695020&sr=8-1
Separation of Church and State has allowed religion to flourish in the United States as compared to the rest of the world. State enforced religion just corrupts the church with politics. The middle east has yet to learn this lesson. Hence, that part of the world lives with almost constant violence.
As a true conservative, I see no reason why a government on any level should or could enact a law preventing a business from opening any time it wants to be open. I think this law is just as bad as say a law forcing all businesses to close at a certain time a day for prayers like if it were a Muslim law instead of Christian. The government should have as small a role in our lives as possible.
Robby, there are two Apple Stores in Bergen County. One is in Garden State Plaza, a large enclosed mall and the other is Tice’s Corner, which is a strip mall in which each store has it’s own outside entrance. Bergen County is the only county to have kept the Blue Laws in NJ. Each municipality, however, seems to treat this law differently though. Paramus being the strictest, with the rest falling behind them. It is my understanding that this will be changing sometime in the not so distant future though. One can only hope.
Just because Bergen County has a Blue Law on Sunday does not mean it has anything to do with religion. This is a congestion law, the people voted (many times) that they want a day break from the traffic. More people are off Sunday than any other day.
For all those asking why do people need to shop on Sundays, here’s one answer. Not everyone observes a Sabbath on Sundays. Many many Jews don’t conduct business on Saturdays since that is the Sabbath for us. Traditionally, Jews are supposed to spend the sabbath in prayer and/or study of ancient texts.
In Teaneck, NJ where I grew up (in Bergen County), many stores are owned by religious Jews. They close around mid-afternoon on Friday, and reopen about an hour or 2 after sunset on Saturday and stay opened pretty late depending on the time of year.
I know the Garden State Plaza Apple store is inside but thought the Tices Corner location was in an open air mall so that one at least should not have a problem being open.
@Anthony
Part of being a Christian and believing in Jesus means you believe in his teachings which means…. you shouldn’t drink and party as you just mentioned. I gave up all of that a while ago, though mainly because you have to grow up sometime.. I’m a christian too, but man… not a good way to argue back with someone about your christian faith by telling them you drink… sounds like a catholic.
Go out drink, party, shoot someone, rob a bank and swear up a storm at the same time… just make sure you go to confession and your set with a few hail mary’s
@jtc – And everybody knows Catholics aren’t Christians, right?
Or Episcopalians (whenever you find four Episcopalians, you’ll find a fifth).
Sorry, the no drinking and partying restriction is just your particular cult. (OBTW – do you know why Baptists don’t allow sex standing up? It might lead to dancing.)
@macslut,
“The point here is that you can’t apply your experiment with one single store of one single type to a broad category of businesses all throughout the country.”
I did not apply my one experiment to a broad category. If you re-read my post I compared a destination store to a destination store. The experiment bore out my wife’s theory: no one goes to a store if it is closed. If it is a store where you can only buy Apple products then the customer will come back. If the customer goes mail order Apple wins anyhow.
However, I’ll concede that Apple is using their stores as advertising and hence being open on Sunday would be a benefit for that. In terms of selling product and managing overhead expenses for the retail operation only, being open on Sunday is not required.
“Some [were] busiest on Sundays …”
Our store was never the busiest on Sundays (middle of San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, CA) and I’d be interested to know Apple’s daily attendance stats.
“Some stores were slow on Sundays, and customers could’ve come in whenever, but were annoyed by us being closed on Sundays and took their business elsewhere.”
Yes, and there are those that are offended if you are open on Sundays, so tell me the secret on how to please everyone.
“… each business should be free to decide what’s best for their business. The only time there should be a law for businesses to be closed on Sundays is if … a community wants one day to themselves.”
I agree. So please find out why this community has their law.
“This is much different from forcing businesses to close because Jesus, Santa Clause, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster says so.”
This has nothing to do with Santa Claus. And, to be accurate, according to the Old Testament it was Moses that introduced sabbath observance, NOT JESUS. Also, it was the local “conservative” authorities that accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath.