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When Minnesota's 159-year-old ban on Sunday liquor store sales ended in 2017, many heralded the change as a death knell for the state's historical "blue laws" — which they considered relics of another era with little place in modern life.
But the liquor ban wasn't the state's last blue law on the books. That distinction goes to car dealerships, which are still prohibited from opening on Sundays. And it doesn't appear that will change any time soon.
Blue laws were once common in Minnesota and across the nation. The liquor ban, in place since statehood, was one of many rules intended to keep Sunday as a day of religious worship and rest. But public support for these laws has waned over time.
John Chase of Richfield has noticed that the car dealership next to his workplace in Bloomington is closed on Sundays. He asked Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune's reader-driven reporting project, to explain why the law exists.
"I see people browsing the lot next door [on Sundays]," he said. "They've got the day off, they're looking for cars, and the car dealer's closed. It's a big process to buy a car, and here's this day when they can do it, and they can't."
Minnesota is one of just 13 states that prohibit Sunday automobile sales. That includes all neighboring states except South Dakota. Another four states have partial restrictions. Violation carries a misdemeanor penalty in Minnesota. The ban covers only licensed automobile dealers; it doesn't apply to sales between private parties.
Support among dealers, employees
So, why does the ban endure? The shortest answer is that no one is pushing to change the rules.
Minnesota's auto dealers and their employees support the law, according to the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association (MADA), which represents the state's auto sales industry.
MADA has fiercely defended the Sunday ban for decades. Its president, Scott Lambert, declined an interview request for this story. But a fact sheet on MADA's website — which appears to be about 14 years old — makes an economic and social case for the law.
"The primary reason for the statute was to provide statewide uniformity with regard to the sale of motor vehicles by dealers," it states. "It was also enacted to provide car salespersons a day of rest, becoming a benefit in the industry and a way to attract and retain quality employees."
It argues that adding Sunday hours would add millions of dollars in overhead costs without increasing sales. It also cites union opposition to Sunday hours.
The fact sheet points to auto dealerships' late hours Monday through Saturday, often well into the evening. It notes that manufacturer support generally is not available on Sundays, financing can be scarce and buyers can't register their cars.
Religion or economics?
The Sunday ban is a relatively modern measure, adopted nearly a century after Minnesota's liquor ban.
The bill landed on Gov. Orville Freeman's desk in April 1957, having moved through the Legislature that spring. Opponents were few but fierce, arguing the bill had little to do with rest or religion.
Both Minneapolis and St. Paul had ordinances preventing Sunday auto sales at the time. Suburban and rural dealers were bound by no such rule, and urban core dealers saw an unfair economic advantage.
"Car dealers in the city didn't want to be open on Sundays because they didn't want to pay their workers more," said Marshall Tanick, a Twin Cities attorney who has defended the ban in court on behalf of Minnesota's auto dealers. "They had a lot of clout at the Legislature, and they got that law passed."
While supporters claimed the ban would "help keep the Sabbath holy," opponents accused the bill's backers of using a religious premise to address an economic grievance.
Sen. Gordon Rosenmeier of Little Falls told the Minneapolis Tribune that the bill was favored solely by dealers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, "who, I'm confident, are not so interested in divine worship as they are in competition from the suburbs."
In the end, Freeman allowed the bill to become law without his signature at midnight on April 12, 1957.
Challenges and changing attitudes
Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on whether such bans on Sunday sales across the country were constitutional.
A 1961 decision, McGowan v. Maryland, involved seven department store employees in Maryland who were convicted of selling prohibited items on Sunday. They challenged the law. The U.S. Supreme Court found that such Sunday restrictions, even if religious in origin, did not violate the Constitution if their purposes were secular — to offer a day of rest.
That decision affirmed Minnesota's Sunday restrictions, including auto sales. In essence, "the Supreme Court gave the green light to blue laws," Tanick said.
But consumers and retailers increasingly wanted shopping allowed on Sundays, and a controversial new statute in 1967 marked the beginning of the end for Minnesota's bans on Sunday sales.
The state enacted a law in 1967 prohibiting retail stores from selling certain items on Sundays. Within weeks, municipal judges across Minnesota challenged the restrictions.
It was a "crazy quilt" of products, Tanick said, ranging from TVs to jewelry to paint. Cameras couldn't be sold, but film could; luggage was off-limits, but purses were allowed.
Meanwhile, numerous municipalities still had blanket Sunday retail closure ordinances. It was widely understood that if the state law fell, the municipal ordinances would, too.
In 1968, the Minnesota Supreme Court threw out the state law, declaring its restrictions too vague, and retailers quickly adopted Sunday hours.
"At that point, the blue laws rapidly started to crumble in Minnesota," Tanick said.
The 1968 ruling, however, applied only to general retail sales. Other laws specifically targeting liquor and automobile sales remained active.
Scant opposition
There have been occasional challenges to the ban on Sunday auto sales.
In 1997, Daryl Kirt, who operated a classic car dealership in Watertown, challenged the law on religious grounds. His observation of the Sabbath didn't allow him to open on Saturdays, he said, and he wanted to open on Sundays instead. MADA joined the case as a defendant, with Tanick's representation.
An appellate court found that the Sunday ban hadn't prevented Kirt from exercising his religious rights, and it upheld the current law.
State Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, introduced a bill in 2015 to repeal Sunday restrictions on both automobile and liquor sales. It never received a hearing.
Liebling pushed back against the notion that a law is needed to protect dealers and their employees.
"I have to reject the premise that anybody's being forced to do anything," she told the Star Tribune in January 2015. "There are plenty of businesses that choose to close this day or that day. Right now, they're being forced to close. They are literally forced to close on pain of criminal penalty in the car sales case. I reject that."
An amendment to repeal the ban on Sunday auto sales was introduced during debate on repealing the liquor ban in 2017, but it was voted down, according to a MADA newsletter.
Public indifference
A 2014 Star Tribune poll found that 48% of Minnesotans favored repealing the ban on Sunday auto sales — while 40% wanted to keep it. But public fervor over the issue so far doesn't match the successful effort to overturn Sunday liquor sales.
On a given day, most Minnesotans aren't in the market for a car, and those who are have six days a week to buy. Consumers also can visit auto lots on Sundays, as Chase observed, with no pressure from sales staff.
And then there's the internet, which brought the advent of online browsing and research 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
"Technological changes have made even less of a desire for Sunday sales," Tanick said.
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