When in 2016 PiS began to mumble about the introduction of a trade ban on Sundays, hardly anyone believed it. The project aroused a lot of controversy and had about the same number of supporters as opponents.
Today, almost 4.5 years later, the discussion is just as heated. All thanks to Biedronka, who gave customers a real “bomb” this week. As reported in Business Insider Polskathe shops of the Portuguese chain were to operate as reading rooms on Sundays.
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See also: A letter from Biedronka has leaked. This is how stores are supposed to operate on Sundays
Żabka gave the signal
The aforementioned tightening of regulations was necessary because stores had been mocking the regulations for years. All thanks to an exception that was already included in the original version of the act.
It was about post offices that were legally exempt from the ban. It didn’t take long for stores to start taking advantage of this. It was enough that only a month had passed by the regulations.
Żabka started, the franchisees of which they started register your stores as post offices. In agreement with the state-owned Polish Post. Thanks to this, it was possible to send and collect a parcel in Żabka. Over time, the cooperation extended to courier companies and for over four years the stores have become quite popular among Poles to supplement Parcel Lockers.
Initially, Żabka was one of the few networks that decided to revolt against the trade ban. This, of course, did not appeal to the originators of the regulations, so from 2019 they started talking about the so-called …
… lex Żabka.
It was about introducing changes to the act that would make it impossible to circumvent the law. Janusz Śniadek spoke the loudest about it.
It’s November 2018. The trade ban has been in effect for just over half a year. Śniadek already notices that there are gates in the regulations that allow some stores to operate despite the ban.
He proposes a bill that the market baptized as “lex Żabka”.
The provisions proposed by the Law and Justice MP include a definition of “predominant activity”. All this so that only those who really do mainly postal activities could operate on Sundays.
Śniadek hoped that the act would quickly pass through parliament and enter into force in spring 2019, i.e. on the first anniversary of the ban on trade. However, the bill quickly found its way to parliamentary committees and the so-called Diet freezer.
In a pandemic, the brakes were released
PiS could not find a majority for this idea for a long time, so sealing could not be carried out. And that only made the other networks bold.
In the summer of 2021, the brakes practically released. Partly also due to the pandemic that has lasted for over a year, in which store limits were in force for a long time. Back then, Biedronka gave the signal from among the biggest players. In July, it first opened 50 and then 240 stores throughout Poland, with the exception of the postal service.
And since Biedronka, Lidl could not be worse. Anyway, the German network unscrupulously admitted that it opens on Sundays only because their biggest competitors do it. – We were forced to decide to open some of the branches as a result of the actions of other market participants – said Aleksandra Robaszkiewicz from the Lidl press office in August.
By the end of the summer, the avalanche had started and the industry had hit the wall. The anti-trade laws were dead and the networks openly mocked the law.
In effect on non-trading Sundays, about 20 chains were already legally operating. On the second day of the weekend, local shops were open (including Żabka, Abc, Groszek, Carrefour Express, Stokrotka Express, Euro Sklep, Chata Polska, Topaz), supermarkets (Intermarche, Polomarket, Kaufland), discount stores (Biedronka, Lidl), and even hypermarkets (Carrefour or Auchan) or DIY stores (Bricomarche). The possibility of opening on non-trading Sundays was given by contracts for the provision of postal services, signed, inter alia, with Poczta Polska, InPost or Pointpack.
This mobilized the authorities, which returned to the “lex Żabka”. In September 2021, the Sejm passed new regulations that allowed only those stores that generate the majority of their turnover from postal activities to be opened.
Sealing didn’t help
The new regulations did not enter into force until February 2022. Indeed, most of the stores that were still open on Sundays in 2021 had to close. We are talking here primarily about the larger establishments.
But that doesn’t mean the trick hunt is over. Many Żabki still operated so far, for example, by using self-checkout counters, and the employee officially “only put goods on the shelves.”
Over time, however, the “creativity” in circumventing the rules grew. Intermarche stores operated e.g. as a bus station. Others, in turn, became bicycle rentals or reading room.
See also: The bicycle rental started in a supermarket of a well-known chain. This is a way to ban Sunday
Due to the scale, however, these cases were not that high-profile. Until finally Biedronka, who entered the game despite Janusz Śniadek’s fury, she decided to change the rules of the game i act as a book rental.
Others will follow Biedronka?
It cannot be ruled out that, just like last year, Biedronka will also cause an avalanche this time. More nets may follow. Anyway, Lidl has already “probed” such a solution.
Still in February in his two Poznań shops he set up “bookstores”. – For several months we have been in contact with the Raczyński Library regarding a joint venture aimed at supporting readership among Poles by locating book machines at our stores in Poznań. The project is local — applies only to two stores in Poznań — and is not related to the opening hours of our facilities — the representative of the German network explained, but noted that this is not intended to circumvent the provisions on the prohibition of trade.
According to industry representatives such attempts at circumvention are inevitable. It is known that it is better to get paid seven days a week than six. Especially if the competition decides to make such a move, you cannot be left behind.
– The cat and mouse play will go on. The networks will find wicket gates, trade unions will rage, politicians will patch up … And we will have to find ourselves in this confusion – we recently heard from a store manager in a large retail chain.
And ways there is still quite a lot in the regulations: for a medical facility, for a theater or for a rental of equipment.
Janusz Śniadek He has already announced that his political formation will think about the next tightening of the regulations. However, as history has shown, it can take up to three years from “thinking” to voting.
Besides, if “lex Biedronka” is to be as effective as “lex Żabka”, it seems that we will be able to do shopping on Sundays for quite a long time.
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