Crown St Mall open on Boxing Day

By Brett Cox
Updated November 5 2012 - 7:15pm, first published December 19 2008 - 10:30am
Shoppers flock to Crown St Mall yesterday. All stores in the mall will be open on Boxing Day, for the first time. Picture: SYLVIA LIBER
Shoppers flock to Crown St Mall yesterday. All stores in the mall will be open on Boxing Day, for the first time. Picture: SYLVIA LIBER

Retailers in Wollongong's Crown St Mall will join hundreds of shops in Sydney and Newcastle and open for business on Boxing Day, for the first time.The city's major department stores, supermarkets, cinema and speciality stores will be able to trade on the holiday after the NSW Government changed trading hours laws.But while shoppers and retailers have welcomed the move, unions say the decision is a sad one which will force many retail employees away from their families.Under new state legislation introduced this year, retailers are able to apply to trade on Boxing Day.And while chains like Woolworths, Myer and David Jones applied on behalf of all their stores, Crown St Mall was one of only two shopping precincts in NSW to apply on behalf of all its stores.The legislation also removed New Year's Day trading restrictions, meaning Myer and David Jones will open then as well.Crown St Mall marketing manager Kate Knowles said the change would be popular among bargain hunters."We're delighted to have been granted approval to finally be able to trade on Boxing Day, offering our shoppers an earlier start to the post Christmas sales and making it easier to shop and enjoy the season at times that best suit them," she said.But the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Union said the decision to open shops was unnecessary and was evidence that big business was prevailing against community sentiment and families."These approvals will further erode the increasingly rare opportunities which retail workers have to spend with their families and with their community," the union's NSW branch secretary, Gerard Dwyer, said."Experience has shown that pressure is inevitably applied to workers to attend work, notwithstanding any guarantee to the contrary."Book shops, chemists, newsagents, fruit shops, food and drink stores have always been exempt from holiday trading restrictions.Other Wollongong stores now able to trade on Boxing Day will open from 9am to 5pm.

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