MATTHEW DALDALIAN
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
matt.newsfirst@gmail.com
Laval businesses and shoppers are preparing for late nights, but not everyone is sold on the idea. As part of a year-long provincial pilot project, Laval is one of three Quebec cities where retail stores will be able to be open until 8 p.m. on weekends.
The move marks a shift away from Quebec’s longstanding rules that have typically forced stores to close by 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The pilot project is set to begin in late summer, with Laval joining Gatineau and Saint-Georges as test cities for the extended weekend hours.
If successful, the measure could eventually be rolled out province-wide.
Shopping habits
At the Méga Centre Notre-Dame, the heavily-frequented retail complex nestled in the heart of Chomedey, the change is starting to ripple through shop floors and food courts.
“I do feel like there would be more customers,” said Wendy Ramos, manager at Urban Planet. She hadn’t heard any schedule changes approaching, so her team hasn’t started imagining the changes. For many, weekends are when the rush finally slows down—and that’s exactly when the stores shut their doors.
“Sometimes after five, that’s when you kind of start your weekend.” For Ramos, the idea makes personal and professional sense. After clocking out, even she finds herself wanting to browse and buy. “I do feel like it would also be a benefit— give the store extra money,” she added, noting that extended hours could bring a boost without necessarily needing to expand the team.
That optimism is echoed by Fara Iabal, assistant manager at Carter’s OshKosh, who thinks the plan better reflects modern shopping habits. “Everybody has time when they are off,” she said. “They go out and shop during the whole day.”
She pointed out that weekdays are rarely as fruitful, with most customers tied up in work or school. In her view, the pilot project should go even further: shorten weekday hours and prioritize weekends.
Scattered shoppers
But if extended weekend shopping might offer convenience, not everyone is convinced it’ll lead to a boom.
“We already started opening until 9 a.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays… it’s doing quite decent,” said Youcef Bouri, the head manager of Sports Experts, also located at the Méga Centre. “But it’s not bringing in more people than it was before.” Bouri sees the shift more as a redistribution of foot traffic than a revenue generator.
“Instead of clients coming in at three in the afternoon… they just end up going later after supper,” he explained. For him, the result is the same number of shoppers spread out over longer hours. And that has consequences for staff. “My payroll is going to increase,” Bouri said. “Will staying open until 8 compensate for the amount of staff I’d have to bring in? I’m not convinced.”
He worries that stores like his, located in residential pockets like Sainte-Dorothée, won’t benefit the same way downtown stores with high foot traffic might. “Over here… we’re not getting any more traffic. It’s just scattered.”
Blue laws
Quebec’s store hour laws have long been shaped by tradition. In the 1980s, most shops were closed on Sundays under “blue laws” tied to religious rest.
But as public opinion shifted and border towns lost business to U.S. retailers, Sunday shopping slowly became the norm. That shift sparked debates still relevant today— about worker conditions, small business survival, and whether convenience should come at a cost.
Shoppers’ perspective
For shoppers like Jeet Parmar, the coming change to store hours couldn’t come soon enough. “Especially in the morning we are very busy doing our stuff like cleaning up, laundry, this and that,” she said. By the time people get to the mall, she says the day’s almost gone. “We have a very small window.”
She’d like to see stores open until 7 p.m. at least, and believes the move could also offer more flexible job opportunities. But others, like Richard Labelle, aren’t so sure. “If it’s good for the stores, it’s because they’re going to make more money,” he said. But for employees, he added, it could be harmful.
“A woman who has children—her kids are at home. You don’t want to have to hire a babysitter for longer because of that.” Labelle said he personally doesn’t shop past 5 p.m. and sees no real benefit beyond business profits. The Quebec government, meanwhile, says the pilot is meant to answer a bigger question: whether it still makes sense to regulate shopping hours in a world dominated by 24/7 online retail.
Businesses aren’t required to extend their hours. But if the year-long experiment shows promise, the model could eventually expand across the province.
