On Sunday Shopping (Redux)

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as if Sunday Shopping will be legal within the foreseeable future here in Nova Scotia, thanks to the results of a plebiscite held Saturday in which approxmately 55% of electors opted to maintain the status quo. So for now, the Retail Business Uniform Closing Act remains intact.

For clarity's sake, the status quo is an absurdity, irrespective of whether one supports Sunday Shopping or not, because Sunday Shopping in effect exists. For starters, all drug stores are open, as well as many independant stores because they are below an arbitrarily-defined square-footage, above which stores cannot open legally. So there is ample opportunity to shop on Sundays, and opponents of Sunday Shopping generally don't seem to have a problem with this. But (gasp, horror!) if a grocery store wants to open on Sunday, that is deemed offensive to the provincially-mandated morality. The consequences of this are best illustrated by walking into drug stores on Sunday--persons aren't purchasing cough syrup or ibuprofen. They are there to buy milk and other staples.

It's upsetting that the forces of market irrationality have solidified this province's reputation as Canada's anachronistic backwater, but I have thus resigned myself to the unique Sunday sight of watching tumbleweeds roll down downtown streets so lively and vibrant Monday to Saturday.