For many, many years they were prohibited from being open on Sundays due to so-called "blue laws" which were ubiquitous, at least where I live on the East Coast

For many, many years they were prohibited from being open on Sundays due to so-called "blue laws" which were ubiquitous, at least where I live on the East Coast. They started to be repealed in the 1970s for general retail and the 2000s for alcohol. In some locations (a couple towns in New Jersey IIRC) blue laws are still on the books and stores are closed on Sundays. When stores first started opening on Sundays it was usually for only limited hours. I remember everything shutting down around 4-5pm on Sundays when I was a kid. That's not really the case anymore. When I was a teenager in the late 90s I was paid $1 more an hour on Sundays. This was published in the NY Times in 1986 https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/19/nyregion/sunday-shopping-a-way-of-life-for-millions.html https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/19/nyregion/sunday-shopping-... >Similar changes are being felt throughout the region and indeed in most parts of the nation. Like New York, many other states in recent years have struck down legal restrictions that prohibited the sale of most goods on Sundays. The curbs, called blue laws, date from colonial New England, with the observance of the Sabbath being their main purpose.