Thompson city council took the first step toward officially repealing its Sunday shopping bylaw in response to provincial legislation changes at their Jan. 18 meeting, but new regulations concerning shopping hours are a possibility down the line.
All councillors in attendance except Coun. Earl Colbourne voted in favour of first reading for the repeal of the Sunday shopping bylaw. In effect, the point is basically moot, since the bylaw references a provincial act that is no longer in force.
“Back in December the province proclaimed Bill 4 which is the Retail Businesses Hours of Operation Act,” explained city manager Anthony McInnis. “The bill eliminated the Sunday shopping hour restrictions. Businesses are no longer required to close after 6 p.m. on Sundays. The City of Thompson’s bylaw was based on the Retail Holiday Closing Act. Since that’s been repealed our bylaw no longer has any power.”
The province has told municipalities that they still have the power to regulate retail operation hours in their communities if they decide to, McInnis noted.
Coun. Jeff Fountain was wholly in favour of repealing the bylaw.
“It’s been the past practice and tradition that Sunday be set aside as a day of rest in conjunction with the Christian faith and I do respect that,” Fountain said. “I believe that this is a great step forward in recognizing that there are other faiths other people and diversity in our community and it gives those businesses the opportunity to express those faiths in terms of their hours of service delivery and what more could you ask for in a multicultural society? I really do applaud the province for doing that and hopefully we follow suit and allow freedom for our businesses to determine for themselves what type of service hours they deliver.”
Coun. Braden McMurdo concurred.
“It gives owners of storefronts, who are paying taxes and then have overhead, it gives them the opportunity to operate longer and compete with either major retail or online business.”
Eliminating early store closing on Sunday couldn’t have come at a worse time, said Colbourne, with the number of COVID-19 cases increasing in the north.
“The stores uptown, the big stores, there’s no social distancing or nothing there. I’ve been in there almost every day and there is none,” he said, arguing for new shopping hour restrictions to be put in place. “I own a business that needs to be open but I’m not allowed but the other stores that’s spreading the disease around here is allowed to be open. We’ve got an opportunity now if we want to take control of this COVID thing. It’s time to stand up, put some muscle into the things that we gotta do to come under control and get our community back to good living."
Not limiting hours might help eliminate crowding, however, Coun. Andre Proulx suggested.
“If you’re open til one in the morning you can go there when it’s not so packed so it might alleviate some of that contact,” he said.
The change might also present an opportunity for the city to exert greater control over when the liquor store is open on at least one day a week, said Coun. Kathy Valentino.
“Maybe we have found a bit of a loophole by the province putting this into place now that we can have more regulation on our own liquor store hours.”
Mayor Colleen Smook said discussion about what to do moving forward would start at the committee level.
“It will go to committee to discuss but right now we’re repealing the old laws that we have because they’re no longer appropriate,” said the mayor.
The current bylaw will not be legally repealed until two more readings are approved by council.
