Store Opening Hours during the World Cup

There was a story in the Munich Abendzeitung earlier this week about shop opening hours being extended during the world cup this year. Some shops will be staying open until midnight, and shops will be allowed to open on Sunday when there is a game on at the Munich stadium.

Toytown Munich: Store Opening Hours during the World Cup

I'm not sure if there are similar changes to the regulations in other cities.

What do you think of this? Do you think if these extended hours are popular the germans will decide to relax the rules about weekend opening times after the world cup is over?

How very quaint! Theres a few special football matches on, so they "treat" themselves to a few extra shop opening hours. How daring and devilish.

Eventually opening hours will be 24x7 in Germany, but dont ask me when. All these things take a long long time to catch on in old old Europe. Maybe in the year 2030. And thats actually not that unrealistic a a time frame: I read an article in Der Spiegel a short while back, it said something along the lines of, its taken us 20 years to get to the current liberalisation since the last major one. Averaged out, the pace of change is something like 5 minutes or so extra opening time per year! 2006 + 20 = 2026, I wasnt far off with my rough guestimate!

I think they will probably ease up the weekdays first, maybe tiil 22 hrs, or later, or even round the clock perhaps, if it gets really radical and reform daring (unlikely). But where they seem to have an extraordinary black spot is when it comes to sundays. Power of the church, unions, whatever... And if it does ever ever come to open all hours on sundays, then I think it most likely it will come through regional land initiatives, most likely in eastern Germany, where the church is weakest. Bavaria is the least likely candidate for initiating sunday shopping Id have thought.

But as for the WM2006 "extended opening hours" - its just a sop to keep people happy and retain the current the system as it is.

But the shops are allowed to open on 4 Sundays per year, so they will just lay them to their convinience...

I think that Shops opening from 06:00 till 20:00 in the evening ( As it already is ) is plenty enough.
If you aint got your pint of milk at 8 it can wait till the morning...

you can tell you've been over here a long time Don't like shopping as it is, and I find it really annoying over here having to schedule a time to go! Like tonight, I have a late meeting that will have to be cut short just so I can pick up some things I need. Can't get things on my way in to work as nowhere opens before 10 so most of the time I end up popping out in the middle of the day, but that is not an option for a lot of people. I really miss 24 hour opening, or even till 11 would be good - where's the corner shop when you need it.

Think it's great idea to extend the opening hours, and it needs to be done round an event to draw attention to it. Hopefully, the concept will catch on.

You must not have a job, then.

I get off work at 19:00. That is not enough time to go shopping, especially not if I have to work late, which I oftne do. Nor is it realistic to do the shopping before my 10:00 start time and have bags of shopping sitting with me in the office all day. The only option is to go on Saturday, which everyone else with a job does, and which is utter fucking hell as a result.

The most ironic thing is that the church can inconveinience the entire country so effectively despite the fact that nobody actually goes to church here.

It is probably the only thing that is going to get me through the world cup!!!

I generally have no problem with the opening times here. It used to bother me when everything closed a 4 on a Saturday but I don't mind now!


Hmm you see I also sometimes am in the office until quite late or on nights when I am not so late I go to aerobics and by the time I'm done there the shops are closed! I am not saying we need all shops open later at night but maybe one or two supermarkets on convenience stores where you can get milk and bread after 8pm for those of us with busy lives?

Twas one of my theories why the UK finally started opening for longer. The percentage of women working in UK is quite high and at the risk of sounding sexist, this helped lend the case for longer opening times (just look at the last few posts...!). Seems that less women work over here but this is changing. Let's see if the theory holds eh?

I like the theory, sounds plausible. I'd only point out that Denmark has more women in the workforce and a weaker church, but stricter opening hours. I can't explain that.

It seems a bit paradoxical that the shop I remember being open late first in England was the local Spar, a German shop. And now all supermarkets in the UK as open late, and now much later than 8pm.

I think it's bloody typical, we will be able to go shopping on a Sunday during the world cup ...why ?
so the rest of the world doesn't notice how backward the and over-regulated the shopping laws are here
...even in hard-core Catholic countries like Italy and Ireland the supermarkets are open on Sundays,
I say let the retailers decide for themselves if it's worth their while they'll open, if no body goes shopping
then they won't bother opening Sunday ...I don't know where the problem is tbh.

I get really annoyed about that .. and I tell her to make sure she gets it bloody sorted!!!

Talking of opening times, I heard that the fact that 1 in 6 Germans drink too much alcohol is cause to look into the availability of alcohol and maybe impose tighter restrictions. So maybe all the bells that were removed from UK pubs last year will start appearing here !!

You are such a macho!

@Bombi: don't get wound up - it's just a macho cover so the other boys won't laugh at him You can always spot someone who is under the thumb, he probably has do to all the housekeeping and shopping

Careful loops, or he will come and get you with the feather duster...

Oh, ok thanks for that!

Maybe in a couple of decades when there are more practising Moslems than Chrstians here and all the churches have been converted into Mosques we will finally get round-the-clock shopping.

In tourist areas (such as the North and Baltic Sea coasts) the shops are allowed to open on Sundays from about the end of March until November - the four extra days are usually then used to extend this range. If I remember correctly, some of the shops in Berlin decided unilaterally that Berlin was a major tourist centre (seems reasonable) and started opening on Sundays, however, I don't think they got away with it for long.

Anyway, moral of the story, if you want to go shopping on a Sunday, all you need to do is move to the right town. You'll be better off if you're a pensioner though, because there probably aren't any decent jobs available!

If you go shopping during the WM you will risk missing crucial deciding goals! Itd be better to have a complete "Ladenschluss" for the duration!