Sunday openings restricted
Saxon Higher Administrative Court declares previous regulation invalid
On Wednesday, 13 November, the Saxon Higher Administrative Court in Bautzen declared the previous ordinance of the city of Chemnitz on Sunday opening hours in 2019 - for the area outside the city centre district - to be invalid.
In July of this year, the Saxon Higher Administrative Court had already ruled in interim legal protection proceedings that the ordinance issued by Chemnitz City Council in January 2019 for four Sundays open for business throughout the city was partially unlawful.
The decision of the OVG Saxony is based on a complaint by the United Services Union ver.di, which considered the legal requirements for the authorisation of shop openings on Sundays not to be met. In order to be authorised to open shops on a maximum of four Sundays per year in the city, there must be a special reason and a spatial connection between the event and the shops that are open.
According to the Higher Administrative Court, events such as the Chemnitz Christmas Market may justify Sunday opening in the vicinity of the event venues, but not in the entire city area, including the shopping centres on the outskirts of the city. For this reason, the Sunday openings on 1 and 15 December for the Chemnitz Christmas market were only permitted in the city centre.
Mayor Miko Runkel: "The four open Sundays a year in the entire city area were a compromise that we had found together with the trade union and which the trade union had supported for years. It is very regrettable that this arrangement is now being called into question - at the expense of equal treatment for retailers. On the other hand, this could increase the number of shopping Sundays next year. According to the law, up to eight Sundays open for shopping per year are possible for special events, limited to individual districts. We will examine this in any case."