York Region stores to open every day except Christmas

Get out your wallets.

Except for Christmas Day, you will be able to shop every day of the year in York Region if store keepers want to open their doors.

Beginning on New Year’s Day, stores will be able to open on all statutory holidays other than Dec. 25, thanks to a holiday shopping bylaw passed by council Nov. 16.

Under provincial legislation, stores must close at least one day of the year. Council chose Dec. 25 as the region’s common day of closure because Christmas is the day stores seeking exemptions to the Retail Business Holidays Act were least likely to ask to open in the past.

The majority of councillors argued the holiday shopping issue has been debated publicly for many years and it’s now time to bring in one consistent policy across the region.

There are many retail workers, such as gas station attendants, pharmacy employees, restaurant workers, garden centre staff and employees of stores and malls in tourist areas that work statutory holidays and nobody has issued an outcry on their behalf, Newmarket Regional Councillor John Taylor said.

“This is a wildly uneven playing field that has been created by the province and this council and by other jurisdictions around Ontario,” he said. “We are, as a government, creating winners and losers.”