What law are you breaking?

[outsiderdealer]

You go into Sainsburys at 9.31am on a Sunday during the "browsing period" and pick up a loaf of bread for £1.25. You go to the till to pay at 9.32am and the till is obviously closed, and a supervisor says that you have to wait until 10am before you can buy the bread. You leave the £1.25 at the till in full view of the supervisor and walk out of the shop with the bread. What law have you broken, and what could be the outcome?

[ChuckFickens]

"There is no set time that large shops can open on a Sunday"

yes there is! for large shops it's 6 consecutive hours between 10am and 6pm.

[LyndaB]

By "set time" I meant set time as in 10am, 11am or whatever - which, if you had taken the time to read the whole post, you would have realised"

[EDDIE51]

Breach of the Sunday trading laws, large stores can not open for sales until 10 am. 'Browsing time' is a loophole that they have exploited to increase profit, you can look round and fill up your trolley but it is illegal to actually buy it before 10 am.
You are also guilty (technically at least) of theft as the store can not accept your offer to pay until 10 am.
But basically you 'bought' an item when it was illegal for the sale to take place. If this actually happened both you and the store would have committed an offence.

[TWR]

Are you Joking Fried? the OH says she might as well read a book> lol

[ChuckFickens]

between 10am and 6pm. sounds like "set times" to me.

[LyndaB]

Yes they have to be open between the SET times of 10-6 for no more than 6 hours, but there are no SET times as to what those hours might be. The store where I work is open from 11-5, yet all the other shops on the retail park are open from 10-4. Or it could even be 12-6 which would still be within the SET time.

[dotty.]

i was stressed out during the extended olympic opening times when the restriction was lifted, i was dreading that because it had been well supported and proved popular the local authority would get the go ahead from central government to carry on up to christmas at least, thankfully they didn't.

[ChuckFickens]

Right, so by "no set time" you meant set times?

Got ya.

[LyndaB]

Yes, I meant no set times. You obviously thought I meant NO set times. Easy to see how that was confusing. ;-)

[EDDIE51]

This particular law is not an EU imposed one it is down to the 'God Squad' the church opposed Sunday trading so this was a compromise to keep them happy, it is also the reason that large stores have to close on Easter Sunday they let them keep one Sunday as a 'Holy Day' with no trading as a token for allowing limited trading on the other 51 Sundays.

[Gladeian]

Its theft - look at sections 1-7 Theft Act 1968