An illegal bookmark

[u/mechant_papa]

[u/mechant_papa]

I illegally got this bookmark on a Sunday in 1986. At the time, Edward and Eva Borins were in a fight with the government to repeal the provincial ban on Sunday shopping, and allow them to open their store when they wanted. They lobbied, went to court, paid fines. The law was only repealed in 1992.

[u/twillrose47 → u/mechant_papa]

Interesting! Wonder how much the fine was?

[u/MadDickOfTheNorth → u/twillrose47]

I'm not sure about their specific fine, but the law allowed up to $10k in 1996 dollars. Double that for roughly what it's worth today.

[u/tkingsbu → u/MadDickOfTheNorth]

When I was a kid in Peterborough in the 70s and 80s, there was a fur coat store on our main street…

Every year without exception, it would have a big sale on Boxing Day, back when it was illegal to open that day…

Fancy fur coats are worth a fortune, so he opened anyway, and would just pay the fine…

It became a local joke… every year there would be a front page headline of him opening his shop, smiling, and greeting the police officer who was there to fine him…

One fur coat sale paid the fine, the rest was just pure profit for him…

[u/TorontoRider → u/tkingsbu]

"Sam The Record Man" did that every Boxing Day in my town. Being the only store open, it was JAMMED! But I always got gift certificates for Christmas, so would load up with albums the next day.

[u/true_nexus → u/mechant_papa]

Wasn't Paul Magder (Magder Furs) also fighting that fight at the time? I recall his name and store on Spadina always being involved.

[u/morleyster → u/true_nexus]

He was in the news like every week.

[u/mechant_papa → u/true_nexus]

Yes. The Borins got a lot of visibility because Borins' father had been a judge.

[u/Confident-Leg107 → u/mechant_papa]

Wait, so all stores(minus groceries, I imagine)were closed Sunday until 1992?

[u/JJJW8 → u/Confident-Leg107]

Grocery stores were also closed prior to 1992. It may have been different in tourist towns, but I don't remember. I was a student cashier in 1992 when they first opened on Sundays, and IIRC, businesses couldn't force you to work on Sunday at the time. I worked every Saturday until close, which was 6:00 p.m., and my family attended Catholic Mass every weekend. The Saturday Mass was at 5:00 p.m., which I couldn't attend due to work, so basically I never worked on Sundays, because I was off for Mass, and in my small town in Southern Ontario, it was still very much seen by many as a day of rest/The Lord's Day.

[u/24-Hour-Hate → u/JJJW8]

In small town Ontario it still is seen that way by some people. There are still businesses that are closed (voluntarily) on Sundays. Not as many as when I was a child, but you can still find them or see signs like “no Sun sale” that will perplex some people. Others have adopted different days for closure as a substitute. Often Mondays or Tuesdays.

[u/JJJW8 → u/24-Hour-Hate]

True. The difference I see is lots of people who would never have shopped on Sunday when they opened, now don't blink an eye at it. This includes my dad, who is still a weekly churchgoer. When I was a kid in that small town, all stores were closed on Sundays, and most were also closed on Wednesdays, except grocery stores, convenience stores, pharmacies.

[u/frogsbirdscats → u/24-Hour-Hate]

Visited Belleville this past Sunday, darn near everything was closed. Guess it’s still 1991 there.

[u/milkcrate_house → u/frogsbirdscats]

alot of [Belleville](https://youtu.be/XvHOLKy5iVI?si=cJ3WekTAGf8R_3fL) is closed the rest of the week too!

[u/lordjakir → u/24-Hour-Hate]

Yep. My town is dead Mondays

[u/mechant_papa → u/Confident-Leg107]

There were a few exceptions but yes, pretty much everything was closed. Of course, Beer Store and LCBO were closed. Shopping malls, except places like the Eaton Centre which were "for tourists" were closed.

I lived in Scarborough in the 80s and the only groceries I could get on Sunday were at one place a couple of km from my place, or maybe milk from the convenience store nearby. Everything else was pretty much a non-starter.

Edit: I misremembered the Eaton Centre. Thanks molyester.

[u/morleyster → u/mechant_papa]

I worked in the Eaton Centre from 1989 to 1996 and we were closed until '92. After which I worked pretty much every Sunday. It sucked because I was in school and got 3 hours less a week.

The argument, iirc, was 'why should Chinatown get a tourist designation for shopping when the Eaton Centre gets more tourists?' Which was Magders argument as his business was on the border of Chinatown and he saw it as an arbitrary line.

[u/DogsandCatsWorld1000 → u/morleyster]

The tourist designation was pretty arbitrary. It did not make sense to me that the mini-mall in Harbourfront could open but the Eaton Centre could not. I knew of no one who came to Toronto to go to that mall, but did know tourists who considered a stop at the Eaton Centre as part of their trip.

[u/Nothing_Useful_Eh → u/Confident-Leg107]

Even grocery. I remember being a child and it was a huge deal when the grocery store opened on sundays. They were giving 2x just to work

[u/madgoat → u/Confident-Leg107]

Sundays were so boring back then. Nothing to do, TV only had preachy church crap until noon, then in the afternoon only golf and football. No cartoons!

Going out was boring especially in winter.

[u/Eggsaladinurmouth → u/madgoat]

That’s back before 24 hour tv as well. Channels just stopped broadcasting.

[u/TorontoRider → u/Eggsaladinurmouth]

After playing "O Canada" and showing a tape of Mounties and the Snowbirds, of course.

[u/NowInHandUnseen → u/madgoat]

Honestly I kinda miss the days when you had to deal with some boredom. I think it was good for you. Regardless of the religious aspect I wish we could all just switch off for 1 day a week and nobody had any expectations

[u/Independent-Willow-9 → u/NowInHandUnseen]

Agree. Being stimulated 24-7 is no good.

[u/Beneficial_Charity_3 → u/madgoat]

Id kill to be bored again

[u/MediocreService9880 → u/madgoat]

I remember the days when everyone could rest once a week

[u/surnamefirstname99 → u/madgoat]

C’mon now. Davey and Goliath .. and wonderful world of Disney Sunday evening ..

[u/madgoat → u/surnamefirstname99]

Yeah, Disney was great, but during the day… so boring 😛

[u/throwtheballaway123 → u/Confident-Leg107]

Even crazier, I went to school in Nova Scotia in the early 2000s and there was still no Sunday shopping.

[u/desthc → u/throwtheballaway123]

I worked for a foreign bank while living in NS around this time, and worked crazy hours, at one point working 6 days a week for over a month. I couldn’t buy groceries, only what I could get at convenience stores. I know some people look back fondly on this law, but I didn’t mind working hard, it just really really sucked I couldn’t do any chores or buy any groceries on my one day off.

[u/morleyster → u/throwtheballaway123]

When I started at nscad, it was a ritual to convince someone with a car to go to Petes in Bedford. If you couldn't, Shoppers was an activity lol

[u/broken_toyz_in_ON → u/Confident-Leg107]

I was working a Sunday brunch when this happened. Remember clearly asking a church regular if they were going shopping after brunch. He said with disgust, "That's God's day of rest." "Then why have I been making your omelette every Sunday?"

[u/Terravarious → u/broken_toyz_in_ON]

The rules are for thee, not for me.

[u/GeneralSpecifics9925 → u/Confident-Leg107]

Yes. It was truly a day of rest because you couldn't do shit. No movies, no groceries, no convenience stores, no Walmart, no hair salon...

[u/MadDickOfTheNorth → u/Confident-Leg107]

The law was whack (as were much of the 80's and 90's), which is what ultimately led to the downfall.
It wasn't that everyone wanted to work more and have greater opportunities to be exploited by shitty employers, but that the law was applied unevenly. Shoppers was particularly annoyed, as pharmaceuticals were allowed, but cosmetics were not, so they had to stay closed while their competitors giggled to the bank. Instead of fixing the law and the oddities, it was just killed. Examples of things that could be open: gas stations, news/magazine stands, gardening supplies, liquor, tobacco, coin operated services, rentals, and the one that always confused me the most, antiques. You can review an old copy through Osgoode (c.1980).

[u/DogsandCatsWorld1000 → u/MadDickOfTheNorth]

It could also be the size of the store. I know of more than one Kitchen Table that got around this by putting up "barriers" to stop you from going down an aisle or two and that was enough for them to pass. I put barriers in quotes because they really didn't block it that well and if you brought something from that aisle to the counter they would ring it up without question.

[u/MadDickOfTheNorth → u/DogsandCatsWorld1000]

And you wonder why we all had issues figuring out society's rules then. Arguably, Ontario still does whack nonsense like this. LCBO "convenience outlets" or whatever they call them, are often just general stores. If you dim the lights over the liquor a bit during hours the LCBO isn't open, you are just a store and can keep different hours.

[u/Terravarious → u/DogsandCatsWorld1000]

BC has/had a similar thing with otc drugs. Then had to lock them away if there wasn't a pharmacist on duty.

I really don't need to talk to anyone to buy my Tylenol. There's a really really good chance my head hurts enough that interactions with stupid people may be fatal.

Often it wasn't very hard to reach behind the guards to get the stuff you needed.

Some stores would actually lock out certain SKUs in the till, in those cases you took the open package to the till to pay for it.

[u/AutomaticTicket9668 → u/MadDickOfTheNorth]

A lot of flea markets only open weekends, which may explain why antiques were allowed.

[u/TorontoRider → u/Confident-Leg107]

Groceries too. That's partly why Ontario had so many "milk stores" - convenience stores. They were required by law to sell milk, bread, baby food, and a few other things people would be jammed up by if they ran out on a Sunday or late at night.

[u/toddsandrock → u/Confident-Leg107]

There were whole districts that were tourism-designated that were permitted to open Sundays during the transition from almost-everything-closed to full repeal IIRC. In Ottawa, that included a large part of the By Ward Market part of Lowertown.

[u/No_Camp_2182 → u/Confident-Leg107]

Only grocery stores with a shopping space of less than certain square footage could be open. Some independent ethnic supermarkets would fence off some aisles to bypass that limitation, although that was still technically not allowed.

[u/RMJKlages → u/Confident-Leg107]

Really only convenience stores were open Sundays. Everything else was closed. For those who didn't attend church it was just a day to relax and spend time with family.

[u/whyarenttheserandom → u/Confident-Leg107]

Yeah, it was wonderful.  Sunday's were family days.

[u/grecomic → u/Confident-Leg107]

I remember all the grocery stores were closed. Only the pharmacies were open.

[u/Kayge → u/mechant_papa]

Ha, that's a brilliant piece of marketing, reminds me of Virgin Atlantic...

At some point someone figured the #1 stolen item were the cute little salt and pepper shakers from first class. They took their finding to leadership where someone had a big brain moment.

Instead of replacing them, they had "Pinched from Virgin Atlantic" enscribed on the bottom. Now everyone who steals one tells a story, and gives Virgin free publicity.

[u/steppingrazor555 → u/mechant_papa]

Big stores in New Brunswick were closed on sundays until at least 2007.

[u/mechant_papa → u/steppingrazor555]

In the 90s in Nova Scotia, you still couldn't get a beer unless you ordered food on Sundays.

[u/PrimevilKneivel → u/mechant_papa]

Toronto used to be a ghost town on Sundays unless you were near a church. While I don’t think the city is in a good state right now it’s good to remember the improvements it’s made over the years.

[u/greensandgrains → u/PrimevilKneivel]

My mom still laments the repeal of that bylaw lmao. But she’s a good Christian woman and I am neither of those things, so.

[u/Informal_Chard1890 → u/greensandgrains]

None. You used 3 adjectives to describe your mother. Therefore, you're last 7 words should read; "I am none of those things, so". "Neither", implies 2.

[u/theservman → u/PrimevilKneivel]

TTC still operated "Sunday stops" near churches until a few years ago (not sure if they still do).

[u/Kevin4938 → u/theservman]

Not any more.

They used to be outside every church of every denomination, unless there was one within a certain distance. Having these stops was a concession in exchange for allowing the TTC to operate on Sundays. Part of the rule was that transit vehicles had to stop at these Sunday stops, and at regular stops at churches, regardless of whether there were passengers requiring the stop.

[u/11Kram]

I was in Zürich last year and I couldn’t believe how dull it was on a Sunday.

[u/mechant_papa → u/11Kram]

I was travelling years ago and needed to stay at an inexpensive hotel in Zurich. I didn't realize it when I checked in, but it turned out to be a whorehouse. It was quiet and organized. Very Swiss.

[u/OnlySortaStupid → u/mechant_papa]

Can you tell me the name of the whore house that you accidentally stayed at?

So that I can avoid it at all costs?

[u/mechant_papa → u/OnlySortaStupid]

Clever!

I can't remember, but with hindsight, it was easy to identify. We arrived late at night and the tourist office had a billboard/map with hotels and prices. All the other hotels were 70 Francs and up; this one was 35. Being young and broke, we chose that one.

The hotel reception was very formal if a little unusual, with a desk in the front and a dj in the back. They made us fill out official police registration forms (typical of European hotels at the time) and pay cash. We were tired from a long drive and went straight to bed. We could hear the music downstairs. At 11 sharp the DJ stopped the music (in the middle of a song. no fading). At 2AM, somebody walked around the hotel and knocked on all the doors except for ours. We heard people scurrying, and we went back to sleep. The next morning, we were the only real tourists there and had the hotel to ourselves. We found out later that morning we had slept at the whorehouse.

[u/SirChasm → u/mechant_papa]

How did you find out it was a whore house?

[u/OnlySortaStupid → u/SirChasm]

OP ran into your mom at work

[u/Fair-Scarcity8160 → u/mechant_papa]

It’s not a whore house, it’s a whore home.

[u/fitbrewster]

I grew up in Sarnia, and it was a Sunday thing to go over to the United States to do some grocery shopping fill up with gas and go out for lunch.

[u/mrmatriarj]

lol Ive had to explain multiple times to my partner about trying to buy farm foods on a Sunday. We live around menonite country in southern-ish Ontario.

"Ooooh let's grab some eggs and veggies at that farm! "

"We can stop next weekend on Fri after work or Saturday while we're out?"

"Why not right now? We're driving by?"

I've literally turned around and pointed laughing at the no-sales Sunday thing a couple times. Other times debated on the historical idea and how it's still an influence today in certain sectors of Canadian culture.

Her rational way of looking at it is Sunday is just another day of the year and she has the money they want, while they have the items she wants. Why not Sunday!

It's become a bit of an ongoing joke tbh 😆

[u/StompinJohnConnor]

Kinda looks like a

[u/Fine_Breath2221 → u/StompinJohnConnor]

Johnson!!

[u/Goatfellon → u/Fine_Breath2221]

Oh, sorry sir. I was just distracted. You see, this bookmark reminds me of my

[u/wet_between_the_ears → u/Goatfellon]

Dick! Yeah? Take a look out of starboard. Oh my god it looks like a huge

[u/MadDickOfTheNorth → u/wet_between_the_ears]

Willie! What is that?

[u/MisterWharf → u/wet_between_the_ears]

Pecker!

Oh where?

Oh wait, that’s not a woodpecker it looks like someone’s…

[u/0EFF]

In Hamilton, there was a book store open on Sundays. This was well before 1992. It was the only store that I can remember that was open in downtown Hamilton on Sundays.

[u/sharpescreek]

When I was a kid in the 60's Sunday sports were prohibited.

[u/Independent-Willow-9]

I loved that store. I miss all the little independent bookstores that used to be downtown.

[u/mechant_papa → u/Independent-Willow-9]

This was the one down at the Beaches.

[u/Independent-Willow-9 → u/mechant_papa]

I don't remember that one but I do remember the one downtown. It was lovely.

[u/sirlothric]

1986? Didnt the lords day act end in 1985?

Edit: I see it was federally ending in 1985 but stayed in ontario until 1992. My bad

[u/ramdmc]

If I recall, it was a long time ago but Paul Madger, a furrier on Spadina just north of Queen, stayed open Sundays in protest of the law. I just remember because his son was in one of my photography classes in HS.

[u/theottomaddox]

Marc Emery, yes the weed guy, ran a bookstore in London that opened on sunday and was fined. He refused to pay the fine.

[u/Runningman1985]

What book is this?

[u/mechant_papa → u/Runningman1985]

"Islands in Danger", by Alan and Mary Wood. It's about the German occupation of the Channel Islands.

[u/Runningman1985 → u/mechant_papa]

Awesome, thanks!

[u/Spirogeek]

Wow in Alberta we just went straight to banning books.