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Moderator cut: orphaned Unfortunately, I doubt that Sandy will be the last crisis we'll have to deal with in NJ. This discussion is a very important one to have BEFORE another crisis. Moderator cut: orphaned
It brings up an excellent question and relates to state vs county vs city policy.
Is it acceptable to inconvenience a subset of people in order to assist people who lost their homes, family, jobs, businesses, and everything they had get their lives back together?
Stance 1
People in Bergen County (if the OP is a fair representative) feels that it is an absurd idea. Businesses should not have the choice in whether they want to be open on a Sunday to help recover from the disaster and residents of the county should not be inconvenienced with outsider traffic. This stance shows how selfish people are.
Stance 2
Everyone should be allowed to help in any way they choose and the blue laws should be temporarily suspended to allow a retail business to participate in the rebuilding efforts of the state. We should put our petty issues aside and come together as a state and work together. This stance shows how caring people are.
Stance 3
Blue laws restrict freedom of choice and should be abolished. Moderator cut: off-topic
Last edited by BstYet2Be; 11-12-2012 at 10:23 PM..
People need any type of jobs with at least one day of rest. Nobody should ever be working 7 days a week, no matter how poor or wealthy the person is. This is slavery! If somebody is forced to work 7 days a week means he/she is being underpaid, and the government needs to increase wage and/or help out.
Germany, Austria & Switzerland have blue laws, and barely anything is open on Sundays. How come their unemployment is lower than us, and overall better economy?
I know a number of people who have retail jobs in places where malls are open 7 days a week, and not one of them actually works all 7 days, unless it's by choice to earn extra money. No one is "forcing" anyone to work 7 days a week.
As to the bolded sentence above, that's simply not true. I was a lawyer at a big law firm for years, and many of my friends have those jobs, or are investment bankers and related. Nearly all of them are "forced" to work 7 days a week on the regular basis, and I don't think that anyone could reasonably argue that any of them are underpaid.
By your logic, should the government be intervening in Passaic County, to help out the retail employees at Willowbrook?
It matters but not as much as you think. When I worked retail in Paramus, the story that I heard is that EVERY company in the country fought to get a presence there, even knowing they'd be closed on Sundays. The malls & stores are among the most profitable in the country with several million people within an hour's drive.
I don't know how much it matters, because I can't find any data on it. I'm still looking....
I can't find more updated data on this subject, but yes, in 2009 Short Hills and Garden State Plaza are two of the most profitable malls in the country: due to the amount of upscale merchants under one roof such as Bloomies, Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom, Saks, Neiman Marcus. Doesn't mean the sales tax is flowing any more than in any other county - clothing isn't taxed in NJ and prices on everything else are pretty standard between chains.
You put in Kmarts, Kohls, JC Penneys as anchor stores, those malls aren't going to be as profitable.
I think certain towns in BC are thoroughfares for commuters and everyone and their sister is trying to get their shopping in on a Saturday b/c of the BL. BC might be missing the point entirely: might get 2 days of roads less traveled rather than one.
But that's up to the people who live in BC, so it is what it is.
Hurricane Sandy is over, and everything is back to normal now, including blue laws are in effect.
God Bless all of us, and thank you for your opinion/thoughts (Even though I disagreed with many here).
- Keep this in mind:Life is very short, and not everything is about money. Quality of life is not worth "extra" unnecessary cash going to already wealthy corporate (business owners) who don't care about their workers, but themselves. We have turned into an evil and selfish society, which has harmed everybody.
Nunnor, if this thread is upsetting you, please feel free to ignore it from now on. You seem to be emotionally involved in this topic, so perhaps it's best to step away.
And FWIW, the Blue Laws have not been reinstated for next week at this point. Word is that it may well happen, but it's not a done deal.
Last edited by BstYet2Be; 11-12-2012 at 10:27 PM..
Reason: updated quoted text
Hurricane Sandy is over, and everything is back to normal now, including blue laws are in effect.
God Bless all of us, and thank you for your opinion/thoughts (Even though I disagreed with many here).
- Keep this in mind:Life is very short, and not everything is about money. Quality of life is not worth "extra" unnecessary cash going to already wealthy corporate (business owners) who don't care about their workers, but themselves. We have turned into an evil and selfish society, which has harmed everybody.
It makes my heart sad when someone thinks they can silence others in a discussion just because they have been made to look foolish. It reminds me of slavery.
Last edited by BstYet2Be; 11-12-2012 at 10:18 PM..
Reason: quoted text updated
People need any type of jobs with at least one day of rest. Nobody should ever be working 7 days a week, no matter how poor or wealthy the person is. This is slavery! If somebody is forced to work 7 days a week means he/she is being underpaid, and the government needs to increase wage and/or help out.
Far from slavery.
Who is forced to work 7 days a week? People who made bad choices in their lives and have to play "catch-up"?
Honestly, you are clueless. I own a retail business and we're open 365 days a year. Two days out of the year we aren't open our typical 13 hours per day (excluding Sundays - not allowed, due to the main nature of our business, to be open before 12pm. Could stay open til 2am if we wanted to, but only to sell certain items and that would get sketchy, so we close at 10pm) and those days would be Christmas & Thanksgiving. We're open 11 hours on Thanksgiving and 8 on Christmas.
The only exception, in 40 years of this business being operated by my family (and after the blue laws in our town were repealed) was during Sandy. We closed at 1pm on the 29th of Oct. (we had pressing issues at our homes) and operated via generator for 7 hours on the 30th - once it got really dark, it was time to close. No power for the security to run, and cell phone service was not working up to par. Power was back on the 31st. We were being thanked left and right b/c our services were needed by the community and no one else, no other business, even TRIED to open.
Quote:
Germany, Austria & Switzerland have blue laws, and barely anything is open on Sundays. How come their unemployment is lower than us, and overall better economy?
So move to one of those 3 if you like socialism b/c it ain't b/c of the blue laws. You should do some in-depth research. People in those 3 countries, who make money, are fighting to not be taxed as high as they are because they are tired of having to take care of those who don't wanna work at all, let alone on a Sunday. We have the opposite. We have a bunch of louses who hate working 9-5 ('cuz it didn't make them millionaires) and want those who work more than they do, make more than they do, own what they do not (business wise) to give up more than they already do. All so they can relax on a Sunday and every other day of the week.
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