On last Black Friday, the lower house of the parliament in Poland accepted a trade ban. According to this law, shops mustn’t operate on Sundays. In this article we explain how will the trade ban in Poland work. We will also show on which days you won’t do your shopping.
What is the trade ban?
The trade ban is the law forbidding trade on Sundays. According to Newsweek, the ban is the initiative of Solidarity (Polish trade union). Their premise is to ease the life of people working on Sundays among which there are many women. One of the committees of Solidarity has performed a research to back up this statement, Newsweek continues. The results showed that more than 93% of polled workers said that working on Sundays causes lots of stress. The union also underlines that people should use Sundays to attend masses, spend time with their families and enjoy cultural life.
Changes step by step
The goal of the trade ban in Poland was to forbid any transaction activities on Sundays. This however didn’t meet with the approval of all the members of the parliament. Hence, the law contains both some exceptions and it will be implemented gradually.
Starting from March 2018, the shops will operate only on the first and the last Sunday of the month. Since the beginning of 2019, we will shop freely on the last Sunday of the month only. The last step will be in 2020 when shops will operate only on 7 Sundays in the year. Those seven days will include Sundays before Christmas and Easter as well as four additional days in January, April, June and August.
Exceptions from the ban
The law includes a number of exceptions for different shops. Bakeries, confectioner’s, newsagent’s, florists, gas stations, giftshops, ticket offices, tobacco stores as well as post offices are excluded from the ban. This caused a big discussion, as big grocery chains such as Biedronka or Lidl include many of those goods in their offer. The higher house of parliament specified those exceptions though setting additional regulations for excluded shops.
One more important exception is that the law permits trade at train stations, airports and within duty free zones.
The calendar for shopping in 2018
In the chart below we list all days in which we won’t be able to do our shopping in 2018. Keep it in mind while planning your shopping this year.
If you want to know more about all holidays and long weekends in 2018 in Poland, make sure to check our article Days Off work in 2018.
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