July 28, 2002

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BLUE LAWS IN RED-HOT COURT FIGHT Louisiana closing rule snarled in legal tape
By David Hanners Published September 30, 1984 Click here to go back to results. BATON ROUGE, La. -- Roger Hamilton isn't proud of the fact that he has a police record. He still cringes at the thought of being arrested, booked and jailed. But he manages a laugh when he thinks of the crime that put him on the wrong side of the law. Hamilton, who manages a K mart in Denham Springs, east of Baton Rouge, was collared for selling a pair of socks on a Sunday. Hamilton's trial is pending. His arrest on July 29 was one of the latest skirmishes in a continuing war Louisiana officials are fighting against businesses that violate the state's Sunday closing, or "blue,' law. That war, fought with a flurry of litigation in state and federal courts, has developed into one of the biggest confrontations the Bayou State has seen since Andrew Jackson faced the British south of New Orleans. The action of the courts has become an issue of itself, with state officials crying foul over what they see as meddling by a federal judge. Said Assistant State Attorney General Ken Fonte with an air of understatement: "It's all a bit complex.' The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will try to untangle some of the confusion. After the state appealed a federal judge's ruling that the blue law was unconstitutional, a three-judge panel of the court heard oral arguments Thursday and took the case under advisement. Louisiana's Sunday closing law dates to the late 1800s and has been altered through the years. It outlaws the Sunday sale of clothing, lumber, building supply materials, furniture and furnishings, appliances, automobiles and auto parts. A first offense can be punished with a $100 fine. After that, the violator can be forced to pay $500 and spend up to six months in jail. While the legal wrangling may be complex, the reasons for Louisiana's being among the last states in the union with a Sunday closing law still on the books (Texas has one, too) also are complicated. The reasons are fraught with politics, economics and religion. "There's got to be a rhyme or reason to it, but I don't know what it is,' said state Sen. Elwyn Nicholson of Marrero.

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Nicholson, a grocer by trade, has introduced a bill to repeal or amend the blue law each of the 13 years he has been in the Legislature. He's hoping the 14th time is a charm. The 60-year-old lawmaker readily admits he has sentimental reasons for wanting to repeal the law. "Years ago, when I was a little son and my daddy had a little corner store, a man would come and say, "I worked until midnight Saturday and I couldn't buy this or that,' and my dad would sell him something through the back door,' Nicholson said. "He was a criminal when he did that,' he said. "It was such a nice, caring thing, and my dad was a criminal for doing it.' But those who support the Sunday closing law have managed to put a hex on any attempt to repeal the law. The coalition consists mostly of the Louisiana business and religious community. Business people say that opening stores on Sunday would be unfair to workers, their families and small business and that Sunday profits wouldn't pay the extra cost of staying open on Sunday. "Basically, our point is the fact that retail sales are based on disposable income. By opening seven days a week, you do not create additional business. You just redistribute the business available,' said Vernon Ewing, executive director of the Retail Merchants Bureau of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce. Ewing's group has steadfastly opposed repeal of the Sunday closing law. But earlier this year, the merchants bureau's parent group, the Chamber of Commerce, reversed its longtime stand and came out in support of repeal. The blue law stems from religious observance of the Sabbath, and the Louisiana religious community is strongly in favor of keeping the closing law intact. John Traylor, pastor of First Baptist Church in Monroe, has been a vocal supporter of the state's blue law and believes everyone benefits when stores put the "closed' sign out on Sunday. "I think the Sunday closing laws do benefit the retail community and the religious community and society as a whole,' said Traylor. "We'd lose a lot if we went away from a Sunday closing law.' There are at least three chains of stores, however, that beg to differ. In December, the state asked for an injunction against K mart, Home Depot Inc. and Gaylords National Corp., seeking to keep them closed on Sunday. And this is where the legal wrangling gets complex. The suit was filed in state court, but Home Depot, a hardware chain, and Gaylords, a department store, asked that their cases be moved to federal court. Their request was granted, but in May the federal court decided to send the cases back to state court. Home Depot and Gaylords countered by filing suit against the state in federal court. They claimed the blue law was unconstitutional, and they asked the court to stop the state's attorney general from enforcing it. The attorney general, meanwhile, asked the federal court to drop the case, saying that another federal court had already said the case belonged in state court. The second federal court disagreed and issued an order preventing the attorney general from enforcing the law. The federal case went to trial in July. On the 25th of that month, U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz threw out the blue law, ruling that it was vague, unconstitutional and selectively enforced. The attorney general -- citing the fact that a state court was still attempting to figure out the blue law matter in the K mart case -- asked Schwartz to overturn his ruling. When the judge refused, the state went straight to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The K mart case is still climbing the appellate ladder in state court. On July 23, a

state district judge ruled the blue law was unconstitutional and ordered that it not be enforced. The attorney general's office appealed the order to the Louisiana Supreme Court. That court agreed with the attorney general and ordered that the district court ruling be stayed. So K mart, following the lead of its former co-defendants, filed suit against the state in federal court and asked the court to stop the state from enforcing the law. The federal judge agreed and issued the order, but he dissolved the order when the federal appeals court agreed to hear the appeal in the Home Depot-Gaylords case. Quentin Dastugue, a Republican state legislator from Jefferson, said he believes the blue law is too quirky and unpopular among the public to stand up much longer. "You can buy a house, but you can't buy furniture to put into it. You can lease an office, but you can't buy the furnishings to decorate it,' Dastugue said. "The government should not be interfering with private enterprise in telling them when they could be open for business.' For the most part, law officers feel they are caught in the middle between a public that wants to buy things on Sunday and a state law that won't let them. While there has been stepped-up enforcement of the law in months past, police readily admit there are things they'd rather be doing. "We've got more to do than to go around chasing people down for selling socks on Sunday,' said Lt. Robert Rarick, a 23-year veteran of the Baton Route Police Department. "It's not a very popular law,' Rarick said. "But while the law is still on the books, we have an obligation to enforce it.'