I am in the market for a new vehicle. Yesterday my wife and I went to a couple of car dealerships, kicked a few tires, and test drove a couple of possibilities. We would like to visit a couple of other places today, as we both have free time.
We can't.
Annoyingly, the Minnesota Legislature/Surrogate Nanny State has decreed that it is illegal for car dealerships to be open on Sunday. I'm sure they believe that they're protecting me from something, although it's not clear what from. I wish to buy a car. Presumably, the dealer wishes to sell me one. Why is it any of the government's business that we conclude our private business, business that is beneficial to the state as well, by the way, due to tax revenue, on a Sunday?
I have heard, but do not know if it's true, that the law was created in part to allow people to wander through the dealer's stock without a salesman following them around. If this is the case, it's a truly silly reason to shut down an entire industry for a day. "Let's penalize everyone because this one person didn't have the wherewithal to tell a sales guy to leave him alone until he needs help". If a salesman is too pushy for you, leave. They'll get the message soon enough.
Whether it's cars, alcohol, or or any other product, the state of Minnesota has absolutely no business regulating when a private sale of a legal good or service to a consenting party can take place.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
The explanation I'd heard was that dealerships don't want to be open 7 days a week, but at the same time, don't want to be closed if their competition will be open.
So someone got a law passed that on Sundays, nobody can be open since I suspect gentlemen agreements among car salesman to take a day off probably wouldn't be all that reliable.
I am interested to know what the true cause of this law is.
Fubar,
I really hope that the theory you heard isn't the case, as that would mean that the car dealers were not only in collusion on business practices, but in state-sanctioned collusion, which is even worse, and a practice that I think wouldn't hold up under a legal challenge, keeping in mind that IANAL. All it would take would be one disgruntled dealer to complain, and the whole thing would be thrown out, I'm sure.
Well I hit google to see what I could find and it looks like 168.275 owes it's existence to the old "blue laws" that tried to keep people from doing anything useful on Sundays.
I found a few comments from salesfolk who like having Sundays off and would prefer the law stays, but that doesn't mean there aren't salespeople out there who wouldn't mind working Sundays.
Post a Comment