Closing times - Violations of store opening laws: hardly any "late-night shop" checks
Violations of Sunday closing times by so-called "late-night shops" in Berlin are hardly punished in most Berlin districts. Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Neukölln in particular, with their high density of late-night stores, are almost completely reluctant to carry out checks. This is the result of an answer from the Senate to an AfD inquiry. Officially, the vast majority of late-night shops have to close on Sundays, i.e. from Saturday night at midnight to Sunday at midnight, because like all other stores they are subject to the Shop Opening Act. Exceptions apply to stores for tourists and in train stations.
In Pankow, 202 fines were imposed this year up to October, 97 in Tempelhof-Schöneberg and 34 in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. 8 fines were imposed in Neukölln and 9 in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. There were even fewer in the outlying districts of Spandau and Lichtenberg.
The Senate emphasized that Berlin had already taken the interests of store operators and customers into account "to a large extent" with its very broad opening hours of 24 hours, six days a week. Permission for stores to open further on Sundays was therefore not necessary and also not possible according to the legal situation.
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- Despite having numerous late-night retail shops, municipalities like Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Neukölln in Berlin have rarely enforced fines for violations of Sunday closing times.
- Consumers who shop in the retail trade sector in Berlin may be unaware that many late-night shops continue operating past the legal closing hours on Sundays, especially in areas like Newkölln and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.
- The AfD (Alternative for Germany) inquiry revealed that municipalities in Berlin have only issued a handful of fines to late-night retail shops for violating Sunday closing times, with Neukölln and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg being the least proactive.
- With Berlin boasting some of the most liberal retail trade opening hours in Germany, enabling stores to operate 24 hours, six days a week, it is surprising that there are still occasions where enforcement of Sunday closing times is lacking, especially in densely populated retail areas like Newkölln and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.
Source: www.stern.de
