Easter Sunday trading back on Hastings District Council agenda

Hastings may follow Napier in freeing up Easter Trading laws. Photo/Duncan Brown

The Hastings District Council will decide whether to align itself with Napier and take the next steps to introduce an Easter Sunday trading policy at its full council meeting tomorrow.

The council consulted the community on the idea earlier this year after receiving a request from Foodstuffs North Island Ltd, and received 297 submissions - 200 opposed to such a policy and 97 in favour.

In a paper to the council, environmental planner (policy) Junior Tuakana said 96 submitters did not give a reason for their submission, but of those who did the opposition mainly stemmed from concerns that it would reduce already limited opportunities for families to spend time together.

Other reasons for keeping the status quo ranged from the desire for the Christian observance of Easter to continue to be recognised, for retail workers to have a holiday, and the belief that there were already ample shopping days available.

Those who were in support felt that shopowners and the community should be able to make their own decisions on when they wanted to open their business or shopped, or considered Easter an outdated concept, or felt allowing trading would be good for the local economy.

The Hastings City Business Association conducted its own survey among its members that showed about a third of respondents felt there should be no change, while the remainder favoured adopting the same changes as Napier City Council and leave the decision open to business operators.

On Thursday, the council will be faced with the option to either retain the status quo or commit to developing an Easter Sunday trading policy that would again go out for public consultation.

In presenting the options Mr Tuakana noted that while the pre-consultation had suggested retaining the status quo may be preferred by the community, the number of submissions received were small in proportion to the total population.

Introducing Easter Sunday trading, on the other hand, would provide economic benefit to the community, and in earlier consultation there had been no evidence of strong views against the proposal from submitters identifying themselves as retailers, he said.

If it were to go ahead, the policy would apply to all retailers in the Hastings district, but it would be the choice of the individual retailer whether they wished to take advantage of that.