Easter + Christmas: Stores Open or Closed?

I had an interesting debate yesterday with a few people regarding stores closing on Easter, other holidays and even Sundays. It all came from someone’s status update I saw on Facebook. In short it basically read: “I’m mad Walmart is closed today”, meaning Easter.

Walmart and most other major retailers are closed three days out of the year, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. My initial comment to myself regarding the status I saw was “if you can’t get to a store the day before a holiday then, it’s your problem. The stores are open 362 days a year.” You can argue I suppose the “separation of church and state” laws where two of the three days mentioned are Christian holidays.

So as you can see this isn’t that simple of a debate. I’m sure people would be in shopping at Home Depot on Easter if it was open. In the case of everything being shut down just the three days out of the year, I don’t think it makes a big economic difference but if stores were still closed on Sundays I bet you’d see a lot of money going to New Hampshire or Massachusetts. There is only so many spending dollars to go around. People like to spend money on their days off and when they have time to wander, ponder and take lunch at the food court to decide on a purchase.

I think the only thing you still can’t buy in Maine on a Sunday is a car. You can buy alcohol or gamble at a casino but you can’t buy a car?

How do you feel, do you agree with large stores having to close on religious holidays or do you think we should be able to shop on Christmas and Easter? I think it should be up to the business if they want to open or stay closed. I also think nobody should be forced to work on Sunday if they feel strongly about keeping the Sunday holy. Then if one person opens then everyone will out of fear of losing revenue. I don’t know, but it does make for an interesting debate.