Comments | nonnihil: Commonwealth of Fools

nonnihil

Commonwealth of Fools

Nov 19, 2005 09:20

For those of you who have not seen it, I suggest a brief glance at this Boston Globe articleIt requires a bit of digging around in web forms to find them, but the customer contact email addresses of Shaw's and Whole Foods Market respectively are ( Read more... )

Comments 5

chenoameg November 19 2005, 14:57:24 UTC

Eh, it makes sense to me. Shaw's has more experience with the MA state laws and that's an asset when a competitor moves in. If it were legal to be open on Thanksgiving some Shaw's would be.

I once heard a brilliant proposal. Elementary school classes, instead of petitioning state goverments to name a state cookie or state insect, should instead find laws that they think are outdated and get them repealed.

(For the record I'm nostagically fond of the blue laws; they're one of those things that make living in MA different from anywhere else. I think they would be more fun if they also included the occasional completely random day that no one in other states is celebrating, though.)

ukelele November 20 2005, 02:42:03 UTC

"Evacuation Day"?

dolohov November 19 2005, 15:22:55 UTC

Since the law only lists "legal holidays" I would be surprised if Shaw's isn't itself frequently in violation (isn't Columbus Day a legal holiday in MA?)

arcanology November 19 2005, 15:43:36 UTC

I agree except for the last line of your letter.

In every state everywhere, businesses try to use regulation to get a leg up on the competition.

Hell, in Alabama (I think that's it) you have to get a license to be a florist, and it takes a pretty hard exam to get it. Existing florists keep that law from getting repealed, because they don't want just anyone arranging flowers and competing with them. Alamaba is not exactly like Massachusetts, but the same stuff happens there.

We should just dump all the holiday opening restrictions. I can see requiring heavy overtime, but saying "you can't open" is dumb.

faith in humanity brighttgr November 20 2005, 02:52:33 UTC

You know, i'm glad (i think) that i have no real faith in humanity, because if i did, things like this would make me cry or hurt people. Instead, I just sit and wish there were something in the great mass of humanity to have faith in. And I'm glad I'm a Whole Foods shopper--and glad they have good hours, because i need food something awful and tomorrow morning is the only time i can shop this week.