At a council-organised hearing of submissions on whether to stick with the status quo or adopt a policy permitting Easter Sunday trading, Fr Wayne Healey, of Oamaru, argued for continuing to prohibit most shops from trading as "one little way" local government could support family values.
He described the Shop Trading Hours Act 1990 2016 amendment enabling territorial authorities to decide whether retailers in their districts can open on Easter Sunday as unfair.
"You are damned if you do, damned if you don’t, but at least you will have stood up for family life and religious freedom," Fr Healey said.
The Waitaki District Council draft Easter Sunday Shop Trading Policy 2017 drew 150 submissions last month.
A total of 73% were against the proposal to change the status quo and 27% of submissions favoured allowing shops to trade on Easter Sunday.
Just six submitters spoke to their submissions at the Oamaru Opera House on Wednesday. Harbour St souvenir shop proprietor Dawn Brown spoke in favour of allowing Easter Sunday trading. She said her souvenir shop was one of 11 types of business permitted to open on restricted trading days — but she said there was a "grey area" that should be removed.
It would not be compulsory for shops to open, or for employees to work, but there ought to be "personal choice".
"Not everybody wants to shop [on Easter Sunday] , but from a business point of view, that’s one of my busiest days of the year," she said.
The three and a-half days when almost all shops must be closed under the Shop Trading Hours Act 1990 are: Christmas Day, a public holiday; Good Friday, a public holiday; Anzac Day, until 1pm, a public holiday, and Easter Sunday, not a public holiday.
After the hearings, Waitaki Deputy Mayor Melanie Tavendale said "it will be a very interesting discussion from here".
Councillors will consider submissions at a closed-door workshop on November 8 and make a formal decision at an extraordinary council meeting on November 15.
"There have been some consistent arguments both for and against it coming through [the submissions process]," she said.
"With the numbers, if you look at just the numbers purely, there was a very strong mandate for no trading on Easter Sunday and we’ll be delving into the detail around that."
