Stray Marks: Blue Laws Blues, Part 2

I have been receiving some excellent arguments regarding my article, "", recently published on Patch. Let me begin by stating that I did not mean to convey any kind of bias towards either favoring or disfavoring the Blue Law institution in Bergen County. Though my column is filed under the "Opinions" tab of the site, this specific piece was meant more to generate the opinions of readers. In this regard I have seemed to succeed.

I admittedly performed very little research while composing the article; this turned out to be a mistake. I hope this sequel might offer a more in depth and fact oriented look at the question I raised – are the Blue Laws in Bergen County more of a help or hindrance, especially during the holidays?

First, Bergen County ranks 16^th highest income county in the nation as of May 2009, with average per capita income of over $67,000. It is also the most densely populated county in the state. Lots of money and lots of people typically means lots of spending, and indeed, retail sales top $5 billion a year. If stores are open on Sundays, and this is just speculation, residents may surpass even that astounding sum. With sales tax of 7%, even if that addition is miniscule, tax revenue would assist the local economy. Additionally, another day of stores open would equal another day of shifts to clerks, who would receive more wages thanks to working these shifts.

More income would help the employees; I shouldn't have to do any research to reach that conclusion. Alternatively, a greater number of employees would be hired to cover these hours. This might help allay the 8.1% unemployment rate suffered by the residents of the county.

Taking all of that into account, let's look at the other hand. Blue Laws for some towns include the inability to work for all white collar workers as well, and even in the face of less work (most likely a universal cause of lower salary), I would think that all workers, not including gas attendants or restaurant employees, would appreciate the break. There's a reason these laws haven't been repealed yet.  Sunday's peace really does clear up traffic, a relevant point to those who look to get away on either the one or one of the two days they have off of work. If there were shoppers on the road, there would be a higher volume of exhaust emissions being released to the atmosphere – common sense since for the past decade – and judging by my own observation of the packs of Priuses rolling down the block, I'd say a respectable number of people are environmentally conscious enough to sacrifice a day of driving for Mother Nature.

Again, I do not wish to offer any personal opinion regarding this subject of apparently quite heated debates. These are the facts I've compiled and the fodder to be cut and molded to fit whatever cause it is you'd like to defend.

On a side note, if you're going to comment, please do so in the "Comments" box at the end of the article.