• A New Jersey state appeals court upheld the validity of a city’s “Sunday closing law.” The court noted that the ordinance had been adopted, by the city of Paramus, to “achieve a reduction of traffic … and afford the residents of Paramus a day of rest and relaxation from the everyday hustle and bustle in order to preserve and uplift the public health, safety, and welfare of the borough and its inhabitants.” Such purposes, concluded the court, were permissible justifications for a Sunday closing law. The court disagreed with the contentions of several merchants that the law in question (1) was unlawfully discriminatory, (2) violated the merchants’ first amendment right to “commercial speech,” (3) was overbroad, (4) was too vague, (5) imposed an unlawful burden on commerce, and (6) was invalid due to lax and inconsistent enforcement. Mack Paramus Co. v. Borough of Paramus, 549 A.2d 474 (N.J. Super. 1988).

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