Another council in Northern Ireland is attempting to use the ‘resort’ loophole in the NI Sunday Trading act in order to allow large format supermarkets to open all day Sunday.
Shopworker’s union USDAW said Derry City and Strabane Council are considering trying to extend Sunday opening hours, just over a month after a similar attempt in Belfast was defeated in a vote.
The loophole allows Northern Ireland towns to be declared as “tourist resorts” though there are no requirements in the act as to what counts as a tourist resort.
The union’s general secretary John Hannett said the current laws were a “fair compromise” that “gives everyone a little bit of what they want.”
Attacking the reasoning for all day Sunday Trading, Hannett said: “Longer opening hours do not mean people have more money to spend, so large stores have higher opening costs, but similar takings.”
Multiples tend to agree, with earlier attempts to deregulate the trading ban in the UK met with apathy from most of the supermarkets. Sunday Trading has always been deregulated in Scotland.
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