Why do shops still have the rule of only opening for 6 hours on a Sunday? If I remember correctly back in the late 80's, all the big shops defied the archaic trading laws and opened their doors. So, why 20+ years later are they still stuck with the same six hours rule?

Doesn't make sense to me.

In the 80's the laws were a mess for Sunday trading, you could buy items from a "Private Shop" but Supermarkets weren't open so you couldn't buy baby food (this is the example everybody used to use).

There were certain items you could sell and those you couldn't, which for shops that sold both could cause chaos. Halfords could sell car and bike spares, but weren't actually allowed to sell you a bike.

It all got a bit much at the end of the 80's / early 90's as certain shops wanted to open, many wanted a day off to be fixed each week and no one wanted to work long hours every single day.

There were all kinds of campaigns, from Keep Sunday Special to Religious groups. In the end in all came down to a compromise, which then became law in 1994 (Sunday Trading Act), Big shops can open, but for a maximum of 6 hours. Little shops can open if they want to with no restrictions. (the big retailers of course do open slightly longer as the first half hour / hour is for "browsing" and they won't actually put anything through the tills during this time).

This has worked fairly well for almost 20 years, and apart from it being relaxed in London during the Olympics last year it's been a constant ever since, and pretty much everybody keeps to it.

It's just one of those quirks that we live with, but look at it this way, there are 168 hours in a week, the big ASDA stores are open for over 140 of them. If during that time you can't pause or record Big Brother / Britain's Got Talent / EastEnders / TOWIE to get what you need to live on, and the only free time you have is 3am on a Sunday night / Monday morning, then you need to slow down a bit.

I have no idea what TOWIE is? But the reason I posted the question about the restricted Sunday hours, was because husband (who is now back in UK) phoned me (still in USA) in a panic yesterday to get me to google when Tesco or Asda closed on Sundays as he'd forgotten about it and had little to no food in the house!
I suppose I've become used to shopping in USA 24/7 for too long and it's one of the many UK quirks I'll have to get used to again when back So anyway, it just made me wonder why they still have limited opening Sunday hours.
Thanks for the answer Dr

You are very lucky, very VERY lucky.

TOWIE - The Only Way Is Essex

Probably best described as a Darwinian experiment to show that evolution isn't always an improvement or advancement.

I think in the States you had Jersey Shore, well imagine that (which was drivel anyway) without the sun, the good looks, the plot lines, the locations and with a collective IQ somewhere on par with the village idiot (normally I would apologise for such a character assassination, but as I think there is far more chance of the village idiot reading this than any of the TOWIE cast my apologies are to him for suggesting he may be so thick).

As you can probably see, big fan

No worries, hope you found my answer useful.