 13 - 19 December 2000 |
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Trading licences to be ‘redefined’
The licences for shops operating on a Sunday will be redefined in legislation that has just been drafted, but the objective is still to ensure that the ‘day of rest’ does not end up with an identical format to a Monday, according to the Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry for Economic Services. The issue of which shops can open on a Sunday and what they are allowed to sell has been a bone of contention for some time now, with some traders complaining that other shop owners were using loopholes in the regulations to operate. Recent clampdowns by the authorities have resulted in a number of outlets being forced to remove certain products from their shelves when opening on a Sunday morning, such as groceries, while other shops have been forbidden from opening altogether. Edwin Vassallo told The Business Times that the new proposed legislation on trading licences, will place an emphasis on defining each type of outlet. "The current laws do not make clear what is what and who is who, primarily because trading has developed and expanded since the present legislation was enacted," he explained. "We need to draw up new specifications and then we can choose who will be allowed to operate on Sundays." Mr Vassallo said that the draft legislation will now be discussed at Cabinet, prior to consultation with the interested parties, such as the Federation of Industry and the Association of General Retailers and Traders. The Bill could, he said, have its first reading before the Easter recess. Mr Vassallo explained that in order to maintain a degree of flexibility in the legislation, the redefining of each type of outlet will be done gradually by legal notice. But he made it clear that whatever adjustments might be made to the trading licences for shop owners, he was firmly against the idea that "Sunday merges into Monday". "I will never agree to the two days becoming identical," he stressed. "We will take certain considerations into account, such as tourists who are self catering and arrive here on a Sunday, but the day will be kept apart from a Monday." | |||||||
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