I remember when I first came to Germany shopping was a complete challenge. Stores could be open until eight pm Monday through Friday but just because they can be open doesn’t mean that they will be open. My biggest problem was supermarkets, as a young guy in a vibrant company I didn’t need to get to work early but we rarely got out of work early.
That’s ok, they are open on the weekend right? Well, only partly. They are open only on Saturdays and then only until one or two in the afternoon. The opening hours was actually not an accident, in Germany the opening of shop hours is governed by the Ladenschlussgesetz. This group then essentially guarantees that stores cannot open before six am nor stay open later than eight pm. I was not the only one who was inconvenienced by the opening hours; this topic did come up especially with the other foreigners. Despite the complaining it was pointed out that over a decade progress was made. The shopping hours were slightly relaxed and it was now possible to do some shopping up until four pm on Saturdays.
That isn’t to say that things didn’t get better. In July 2006 there was actually a very positive change, the government did handover control of the opening hours to the individual states. When the law was changed of course there were some vocal opponents, my absolute favorite quote on the topic came during a television interview. He said that having the shopping hours extended like this might encourage people to simply go shopping for the entertainment value as opposed to shopping to purchase things.
I kept asking my friends about this and was told that the law was in place to make sure that people were not forced to work long or bad hours, basically to make sure that everyone gets time for rest and recuperation. I could almost understand this during the week, but I always found this to be a very hypocritical answer as it related to the weekend. There were of course exceptions for some special professions.
- Fire fighter
- Policeman
- Doctor
- Gas station staff
- Hotel staff
- Public transportation staff
- Restaurant staff
- Airports staff
- Train station staff
- (the list goes on)