What Is the History of Blue Law in New Jersey
`Blue Laws'
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July 20, 1978
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TRENTON, July 19 — Although New Jersey's restrictions on Sunday sales in of the state's 21 counties were upheld yesterday by the State Supreme Court, the blue laws, which have plagued merchants since 1704, may be doomed.
News Analysis
Members of the Judiciary Committee of the State Senate agreed today it would be best not to try to amend further a proposed new criminal code scheduled for a final legislative vote on July 27. The code repeals the blue laws.
Senator Martin L. Greenberg, Democrat of South Orange, introduced a separate bill that would reinstate the blue laws, but even if it should pass the Legislature, it probably would be vetoed by Governor Byrne.
Mr. Byrne has said he considers the blue laws to be "arbitrary."
Since the new criminal code would not take effect for a year, there would be time to consider whether to keep the blue laws, Senator Greenberg said.
Reopening of Debate Feared
Backers of the new criminal code have said that if it is opened for amendments, it might never get final approval. The m,easure has been pending in the Legislature for a decade.
In New Jersey's long history, almost no routine issue has created as much controversy as have blue laws.
The laws, which had a religious origin, were termed "blue laws" in a satire written in 1781 by a Connecticut Tory, Samuel Peters, who was forced to flee to London during the Revolutionary War.
His "General History of Connecticut" listed "blue laws" in effect in the colony, including one prohibiting a mother from kissing her children on Sundays.
The Peters tome referred to them as"blue laws" because Connecticut's criminal code was bound in blue.
The blue law of 1704 was incorporated into a new blue laws passed by the New Jersey Legislature in 1798, called an "Act to Suppress Vice and Immorality."
Laws Were Church‐Oriented
Under it, not only was commercial activity prohibited, excepting for the operation of inns, any form of amusement and travel also violated the law. People could travel to church or to see a doctor so long as the distance did not exceed 20 miles. The law was church‐oriented and designed to promote Sunday as a day for church.
Fines for violating it ranged from $1 for simple infractions to $14 for fishing with seines or nets. Swearing or using profanity was punishable by a 50‐cent fine. Anyone rash enough to swear in the hearing of a justice of the peace could be tried and convicted on the spot, the law pi.oviding that no other evidence was necessary.
Although the fines levied under the early laws were minimal, authorities could seize merchandise being offered and sell it. Proceeds from auctions and from fines were earmarked for support of paupers.
The Act to Supress Vice and Immorality remained in effect until 1951, although it was amended from time to time. One of the most significant amendments was one in 1920 to allow baseball and other games in county parks. This amendment had been recommended by a crime commission in 1908 as an answer to increasing juvenile crime. "An idle hand, is the devil's workshop," the commission said in a report.
Law Studied in 1927
In 1927, a Blue Law Revision Commission appointed by the Legislature, recommended an overhaul of the 1798 act, saying:
"It is entirely permissible for your children to play tennis and baseball, to swim and canoe, skate and sleigh on our property on Sunday but illegal and sinful on your own property.
"What right has the state to rewrite for God the precepts of the Fourth Cornmandmant? If such acts on Sunday are sinful in the eyes of our Lord and Master on private property, they are just as sinful on public property and the state will never be able by legislation to deny it."
The new law recommended by the 1927 commission, which would have allowed local option on Sunday events, passed the Assembly, but not the Senate.
From time to time, the law of 1798 was attacked as promoting the
But no New Jersey court had struck in down by 1951, when the New Jersey Legislature replaced it with a new blue law based on the proposition of promoting public health by requiring at least one day a week of rest for workers.
No Fines Specified in Law
All business were to be closed on Sundays except those of "necessity and charity." But the law specified no fines and did not define "necessity." It provided for enforcement by muhrcipalides and a hodge‐podge developed,
Goods sold legally in one town on Sunday could not be sold in an adjoining one. In 1955, the law was amended to prohibit automobile sales on Sundays throughout the state, and dealers attacked the law through state courts and lost. The United States Supreme Court refused to take jurisdiction because no "substantive Federal issue" was involved."
This law is also being repealed in the proposed new criminal code.
In 1958, the Legislature set out to close food supermarkets on Sundays, and passed a bill to that effect. But it was declared unconstitutional because three coastal counties were exempted.
The fight over this led to the current blue law. In 1959, the Legislature repassed the supermarket bill, but provided that counties could, by referendum, remove themselves from the blue law.
The new law, now in effect in Bergen, Essex, Passaic, Hudson, Union, Somerset, Morris, Middlesex, Monmouth and Cumberland Counties, prohibits Sunday sales of clothing, furniture, home and office furnishings, lumber and appliances.
Orthodox Jewish merchants in Newark went to court to try to have the law declared unconstitutional as promoting religion, but the courts upheld itin t April 1960„ the State Supreme Court declaring the 1951 law to be null and void, but upholding the new one as being within the Legislature's perogative.
There has been some agitation to change Sunday laws to allow horse racing and to open liquor stores.
There is a precedent for Sunday gambling. The law regulating casinos allows the Atlantic City gambling parlors to run on Sundays.
United Press International
State Senators John F. Russo, left, and Martin L. Greenberg during Senate Judiciary Committee meeting yesterday
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/20/archives/new-jersey-pages-blue-laws-and-how-they-got-that-way-news-analysis.html
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