Talk:Blue law

History Section

In the History Section, the text reads: "Numerous Americans were arrested for working, keeping an open shop, drinking alcohol, traveling, and recreating on Sundays." "Recreating" what? What were they arrested for creating again? If the word is meant to indicate spending time for leisure activities as in "recreation," then it should use the use the word "recreation" instead. "Recreating" as a verb is not normally used in the sense "engaging in recreational activity." I've never heard it used this way, and, at least in the dictionary I consulted, such use does not comport with listed definitions for the word "recreate." I suggest revision or clarification. Replacing "recreating" with "engaging in recreational activities" would make the meaning clearer and keep the parallelism of the sentence intact.

It also would help if another sentence or two were added to explain why recreational activities would be banned on Sunday if that day was designated as a day of rest. One would assume that Sunday would be the very day in which recreational activities would most likely be engaged if all other days of the week were devoted to work. 66.91.36.8 (talk) 05:16, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To not merge, as the concepts are not equivalent and WP:TOOLONG is against a merge. Klbrain (talk) 10:37, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

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I propose to merge Sunday shopping into this article, as the topic appears to be the same. Needforspeed888 (talk) 17:58, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Seconded. Glide08 (talk) 19:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Considering the size of the articles, put together there's justification for a split. Roughly 100kb put together generically without any of the obvious reduction in content thru copy editing. -Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 14:29, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that the two articles are related, but not the same concept. Blue laws may forbid other things besides only shopping on Sundays. I hope this helps. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 16:29, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note that I've also added links or hatnotes between them. Klbrain (talk) 10:37, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Israel

Why is Israel not mentioned in this article? Arguably, it is the country in the world with the most stringent 'blue laws' that forbid all commerce, public transportation, and employment on the Sabbath (Saturday). 109.186.217.17 (talk) 16:12, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Name

Why are they called blue laws? They are not in the UK afaik. 84.71.108.201 (talk) 00:22, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Article title

This article seems to be about Sunday Trading Laws. Why can’t it have that as a title? As a PhD-educated native English speaker from England, I have never heard of the term “Blue law”, so the current title is meaningless. JeremyYorkshire (talk) 13:44, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

It seems the title is only appropriate for North America. By the way, there is already the article Sunday shopping, including sections on Sunday shopping bans.--2A02:3032:209:AEB6:5B0B:E35B:2FF:1A5E (talk) 01:18, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Codex

It's lib 2, not 3 lib. 2: Omnes iudices urbanaeque plebes et artium officia cunctarum venerabili die solis quiescant. https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/Corpus/CJ3.htm ~2025-36120-26 (talk) 20:22, 24 November 2025 (UTC)