Union opposes stat holiday openings for grocery stores
Posted September 4, 2015 1:47 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Independents grocers in Toronto want to stay open on statutory holidays, but Canada’s largest private sector union want their employees to have the day off.
Now, the fight to scrap the holiday shopping bylaw may soon land on the city’s doorsteps.
Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union representing 300,000 members, says it will fight retailers who want to get rid of the bylaw, the Toronto Star reports.
“In an industry that’s not very well paid … do these stores need to be open these nine extra days?” Jenny Ahn with Unifor told the Star. She says employees are already working “crazy shifts.”
But the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers is hoping the city reopens the bylaw issue when council meets on Sept. 30, the Star reports.
The city’s holiday shopping bylaw states most businesses are required to close on the following nine statutory holidays: New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and Family Day.
However, business can remain open in designated tourist areas like the Toronto Eaton Centre, Queens Quay West, the Distillery, and Bloor-Yorkville.
According to the bylaw, retailers who violate the bylaw could face a maximum fine of $50,000.
Independent grocery retailers say an Ontario Court of Justice ruling last fall permits them to remain open on statutory holidays, the Star reported last month.
The court ruled Longo Brothers Fruit Markets Inc. was exempt from the requirement to close because as the company argued it met the definition of a business that sells “prepared food.”
The case was initially brought to court after Longo Brothers allowed two of its downtown stores to stay open on Labour Day in 2013. City officials, who disagreed with the ruling, appealed the court’s decision, but lost its appeal earlier this summer.
Gary Sands, the federation’s vice-president, says the ruling could pave the way for other supermarkets who want to stay open on statutory holidays since they already sell prepared foods.
The Star reported Friday the city solicitor is expected to deliver a report on what the court’s ruling has on a section of a bylaw.
“It is the city’s position that the exemption for ‘prepared meals’ does not permit [a] business to sell goods or services that are not in the form of or in connection with those prepared meals,” the city writes on its website. It argues the exemption is only meant to apply to restaurants and fast-food outlets.
Officials with the city’s municipal licensing and standards department, and legal staff, have been reviewing the court’s ruling and could re-work that particular section of the bylaw clarify its intention, the Star reports.
But Sands said customers, and not councillors, should decide if stores should remain open on statutory holidays.
