My local fruit and vegie shop

[Lilith7]

I'd much rather have celebrating religious festivities and holidays up to the individual than be legislated into our society, and it would be a much more open and respectful thing to do for our diverse population.

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As online trading becomes ever more prevalent the boundaries of prohibited trading days becomes increasingly irrelevant.
Our website runs 24/7 irrespective of the day's status in that regard. We often see sales start to come in as people relax during their Xmas festivities so the demand is obviously there. Especially noticeable if Xmas day weather is wet which doesn't look like being the case tomorrow.

Incidentally we were contacted by Google recently questioning the "store hours" we have posted with them. They failed to believe my telling them we never close until I stressed to them that "We are an online business trader. Our customers can place orders whenever they like." That settled the issue.

I do see the issue for B&M retailers trading on statutory holidays as they have to actually front up for physical sales activity which denies them and/or their employees a welcome break. We only have to check our emails on the next day that suits us and courier availability.

The Pukekohe New World boss has closed his store on Boxing Day, of his own volition, as a gift to his staff.

Now that kind of business management is exactly what we should be aiming for, in my opinion. We should only need to legislate against negative business practices and leave other business decisions to those who are taking the risk.

I think that heaving it up to the individual, (providing we've laws preventing people from exploiting their workers in place) could work best in the long term.
That way people who observe a different religion would be free to close their business for important days, if they were inclined to or to have workers of a different religion work those days in an exchange for the worker covering those days having the same number of days free, either for religious reasons or to make the days worked fair for everyone.

Most business people are reasonable & tend to treat their workers fairly; its just those who don't who cause the problems.