Court Opinion

ID: 9646530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:02:15.970983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:39.058972
License: Public Domain

*579O’HERN, J.,
dissenting.
Today Sunday is many things to many people. It is a day upon which the vast majority of citizens seek respite from the pressures and demands of ordinary routines. To some, it is a day for religious devotion alone.' To others, whether or not members of faiths commanding religious observance, it is a secular holiday, a day for play, hobbies, recreation or relaxation. To still others, it is a combination of all of these. It is a day for family and friendly reunions. Most people want Sunday for themselves to do as they feel they should, each to prepare himself in his own way to meet the demands of Monday morning. [Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, 32 N.J. 199, 216 (1960).]
To this it may be added, borrowing the words of Justice Handler, dissenting in Vornado, Inc. v. Hyland, 77 N.J. 347 (1978), appeal dismissed, 439 U.S. 1123, 99 S.Ct. 1037, 59 L.Ed.2d 84 (1979), that “Sunday is a day for [working] for a great many people and for those who are so minded this activity, depending upon individual circumstances, is necessitous, convenient,, diversionary and [even, for some,] recreational, at bottom reflecting the myriad personal wishes and subjective choices of individuals.” 77 N.J. at 381.
In preparing to meet the demands of Monday morning, judges and lawyers might choose to engage in “worldly employment or business” of the type prohibited by the Paramus ordinance; they may have to go to a commercial office building to review briefs and authorities. Doctors who are preparing for an operation scheduled for Monday might want to consult their office files on Sunday to review materials. Salesmen, computer programmers, and graphic artists might do the same. Today’s woman, trying to juggle a career with homelife, might want to catch up on assignments over the weekend rather than to remain at work into the evening. Some may even wish to do this work at home.
Unless I misread the scope of the Paramus ordinance, each of the foregoing activities would be subject to punishment. I would not want to have to prove that such work was either that “of necessity” or “charity,” activities that are exempted from the prohibition. The Borough of Paramus does not make any other distinctions among those works that one might conduct *580without unreasonable interference with the repose of one’s neighbors on a day that all agree is a day that people should have for themselves.1
I.
The people of the State of New Jersey have learned to live with the balanced regulatory approach to Sunday closing laws expressed in the provisions of N.J.S.A. 2A:171-5.8 (“it shall be unlawful for any person * * * to sell, attempt to sell or offer to sell or to engage in the business of selling * * * clothing * * *, building and lumber supply materials, furniture, home or business or office furnishings, household, business or office appliances * * * ” on Sunday). This legislative classification of activities that have the capacity to interfere with the peace and tranquility of others was sustained by this Court in Vornado, Inc. v. Hyland, supra, 77 N.J. at 363. I do not believe that the Legislature intended that society engage once again in the deeply divisive debate that surrounds the renewal of sweeping Sunday closing laws, such as those set forth in the Paramus ordinance.
Such a vague ordinance suffers from the constitutional infirmity that Justice Douglas condemned in Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972). It “permits and encourages an arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of the law. It furnishes a convenient tool for ‘harsh and discriminatory enforcement by local prosecuting officials, against particular groups deemed to merit their displeasure.’ ” Id. 405 U.S. at 170, 92 S.Ct. at 847, 31 L.Ed.2d at *581120 (quoting Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 97-98, 60 S.Ct. 736, 741-742, 84 L.Ed. 1093, 1100 (1940)). If the Legislature intended such sweeping regulatory programs to be enacted, courts would have to narrow their sweep by construction, limiting their scope to a constitutionally permissible range. In view of these overriding concerns, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the Legislature intended municipal Sunday closing laws that are inconsistent and at variance with the state regulatory program to be an authorized subject for municipal legislation.
In State v. Crawley, 90 N.J. 241 (1982), we recognized that the Legislature’s central purpose in enacting the Code of Criminal Justice was “to create a consistent, comprehensive system of criminal law.” Id. at 250. The Legislature stated these goals in the statute that established the New Jersey Criminal Law Eevision Commission:
It shall be the purpose of [the Code of Criminal Justice] to modernize the criminal law of this State so as to embody principles representing the best in modem statutory law, to eliminate inconsistencies, ambiguities, outmoded and conflicting, overlapping and redundant provisions and to revise and codify the law in a logical, clear and concise manner. [L. 1968, c. 281, § 4 (emphasis supplied).]
If municipalities were permitted to adopt local counterparts to the Sunday closing law provisions of the Code, the express legislative policy of eliminating overlapping and redundant provisions from the criminal law would be defeated.
The majority relies on general-preemption precedent in support of its conclusion that the Legislature did not intend to monopolize the field by its Sunday closing legislation. Ante at 573-578. However, in Crawley we referred to traditional preemption law only to point out that the “result accords with traditional principles of local legislative power and the doctrine of state preemption.” 90 N.J. at 247.
The essence of Crawley was its reliance upon the Code’s negative-preemption provisions:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the local governmental units of this State may neither enact nor enforce any ordinance or other local law or *582regulation conflicting with, or preempted by, any provision of this code or with any policy of this State expressed by this code, whether that policy be expressed by inclusion of a provision in the code or by exclusion of that subject from the code. [N.J.S.A. 2C:1 — 5(d), quoted in part in State v. Crawley, supra, 90 N.J. at 244.]
II.
In this case, the Legislature has expressed its intent that its regulatory program be the state policy both by inclusion and exclusion. The evolution of state policy on municipal blue laws has been uneven. The statutory evolution has been accurately set forth in the majority opinion. Ante at 568-573. The change in policy requires closer analysis. Because the reader will probably have difficulty following references to the various statutory sections, I refer to the legislative history in shorthand terms.

The Statewide Ban of 1951

(Article 1 of the 1951 Revision2)
The core of the Statewide Ban of 1951 was N.J.S.A. 2A:171-1, which stated:
No worldly employment or business, except works of necessity and charity, shall be performed or practiced by any person within this state on the Christian Sabbath, or first day of the week, commonly called and hereinafter designated as Sunday.
This replaced the ban of the earlier statute. See Two Guys from Harrison, Inc., supra, 32 N.J. at 208. The remaining sections of Article 1 excepted from 2A:171-l’s sweep the sale of drugs, meals, prepared food, and certain alcoholic and all nonalcoholic beverages (2A:171-2); prohibited the service of civil process on Sundays (2A:171-3); provided a limited exemption from 2A:171-1 for persons who observed the Sabbath on Saturdays (2A:171-4); and exempted those who observed the Sab*583bath on Saturdays from answering to any judicial process or performing the duties of any office or military service on Saturdays (2A:171-5).

The Local Option of 1951

(Article 2 of the 1951 Revision)
N.J.S.A. 2A:171-6 through -12 of the 1951 revision outlined a procedure whereby municipalities could exempt additional activities from the blanket proscription of 2A:171-1 by referenda. This limited authorization for local regulation of Sunday activities was traced to a similar provision dating back to 1893. Thus, the 1951 revision continued the practice of permitting limited local exceptions to the ban on Sunday activity. The key exceptions that a municipality could make included the printing, publishing, and selling of newspapers; selling and delivering milk; walking, riding, or driving for recreation; hiring conveyances for riding and driving; and engaging in lawful recreation, sport, or amusement. See Two Guys from Harrison, Inc., supra, 32 N.J. at 208.
Following the 1951 revision of New Jersey’s Sunday closing laws, the dominant theme of judicial response was to insist on uniformity with state policy. In Auto-Rite Supply Co. v. Mayor of Woodbridge, 25 N.J. 188 (1957), this Court mandated an all-or-nothing approach:
In summarizing, it may be said: The state policy is a day of rest and relaxation. Sunday closing ordinances may not be validly enacted to conflict with a statute which declares state policy, namely, no worldly employment or business may be performed, excepting works of necessity and charity within the statutory contemplation and those activities mentioned in the statute and placed with the will of the electorate by local referendum vote. There is no middle ground. The Woodbridge ordinance conflicts with state policy and it is therefore void and of no effect. [Id. at 196 (emphasis added).]

The Statewide Ban of 1958

(L. 1958, c. 138)
Because of the preemptive effect of the 1951 statewide ban (as of 1960, only three of the 567 municipalities had conformed, *584Two Guys from Harrison, Inc., supra, 32 N.J. at 210) and the lack of any effective penalty, State v. Fair Lawn Serv. Center, Inc., 20 N.J. 468, 474 (1956), the ban of 1958 was enacted to supplement the 1951 statewide ban by specifically prohibiting the Sunday sale of specified categories of goods and adding penalty provisions. The goods that could not be sold were “clothing or wearing apparel, building and lumber supply materials, furniture, home or business or office furnishings, household, business or office appliances.” L. 1958, c. 138, § 1. It added penalties of $25 for first offenses, $100 for second offenses, and $200 or imprisonment for third offenses. The Act excluded three shore counties, however, and was thereby held invalid in Sarner v. Township of Union, 55 N.J.Super. 523, 545 (Law Div.1959).

The County Option of 1959

(L. 1959, c. 119)
In response to Samer, the Legislature enacted L. 1959, c. 119 (2A:171-5.8 to -5.18), often referred to as “Chapter 119.” This act contained substantially the same prohibition on sale of certain goods and services as that described in the 1958 statute. It was to be operative only in those counties where the voters determined by referendum it should apply. L. 1959, c. 119, § 5 (codified at N.J.S.A. 2A:171-5.12). Following the adoption of Chapter 119, N.J.S.A. 2A:171, in an opinion described by Justice Francis in dissent as one of “judicial legerdemain,” 32 N.J. at 237 this Court discerned a new state policy of limited prohibition of Sunday activity and legislative neutrality on local options. Two Guys from Harrison, Inc., supra, 32 N.J. 199. The majority in Two Guys interpreted the county option provisions of Chapter 119, although denominated an act to supplement the 1951 revision, as in fact an act to repeal the provisions *585and policy of conformity contained therein. Id. at 223-25.3 Finding thé policy of uniformity repealed, the Court then sustained an earlier Paramus ordinance almost identical with this one on the basis that “[a] municipality may not authorize what the state statute prohibits in any county in which the statute operates, but Chapter 119 does not prevent the municipality from proscribing other activities if there is an evil justifying the exercise of its delegated police power.” Masters-Jersey, Inc. v. Mayor of Paramus, 32 N.J. 296, 302 (1960).
This, then, was the background when, in the summer of 1978, the New Jersey Legislature was considering adoption of the new Code of Criminal Justice.4 The proposed Code contained an express repeal of all state statutes regulating or limiting Sunday activity. Notwithstanding what is described as public objection and public pressure in adopting the Code, the Legislature left intact the express repeal of all prior Sunday closing laws, including Articles 1 and 2 of N.J.S.A. 2A:171 and Chapter 119. See N.J.S.A. 2C:98-2.
The same contemporary accounts disclose that prior to the effective date of the Code in 1979 the Legislature considered a number of bills designed to restore the power of municipalities to impose Sunday closings. In the consensus amendments to the Code, L. 1979, c. 178 (effective September 1, 1979), the *586Legislature saved only Chapter 119, the County Option. The Legislature expressly repealed the general prohibitions of Articles 1 and 2 of N.J.S.A. 2A:171, i.e., the Statewide Ban and the Local Option provisions. (Left intact was the specific provision concerning buying, selling, and trading motor vehicles on Sunday, N.J.S.A. 2A:171-1.1) For the first time since 1893, the New Jersey Legislature expressly withdrew statutory recognition of municipal regulation of Sunday activities.
The policy of legislative neutrality on inconsistent municipal regulation of Sunday activities has been repealed by the Code’s policy of consistency. Hence, the majority’s reliance on Masters-Jersey, Inc. is misplaced. The Appellate Division correctly read that legislative history as follows: “[T]he Legislature in the Code made affirmative decisions to preserve the county options set forth in Chapter 119, to clear from the statute books the superseded broad prohibition and municipal relaxation thereof, and to eschew any further municipal regulation.” 201 N.J.Super. 508, 512. Thus it correctly concluded that “[ujnlike the state of the law at the time of Masters-Jersey, Inc., as of the effective date of the Code, the State no longer merely set one state-wide level of criminal prohibitions subject to supplementation at the municipal level within the same areas in which the Legislature had spoken.” 201 N.J.Super. at 513. To this I would add only that in the two most recent legislative responses to Sunday sales, each action has reflected an apparent legislative acceptance of the paramount state policy expressed in Chapter 119.
L. 1984, c. 160 (approved and effective October 1, 1984), allows any city of the first class located within any county that has adopted the referendum provisions of Chapter 119 prohibiting Sunday sales to conduct a referendum within the city to determine if the county option shall be inoperative in that city. If a majority of all votes cast is against the question (“[sjhall Sunday sales be permitted in this city?”), the provisions of Chapter 119 remain operative, i.e., only those items that are prohibited from sale on Sundays under the county option refer*587endum would continue to be prohibited in the municipality. The final, and to me most persuasive, legislative reaction to the problem is set forth in L. 1985, c. 417 (approved and effective January 13, 1986), which permits a disapproving municipality in any county that has approved Sunday sales by a referendum held pursuant to Chapter 119 to conduct a local referendum on the issue. Significantly, this legislation incorporates the definition found in L. 1985, c. 271 that “ ‘Sunday sales’ means selling, attempting to sell, offering to sell or engaging in selling the goods enumerated in section 1 of P.L. 1959, c. 119 (c. 2A:171-5.-8) on Sunday.” It seems needless to ask why the Legislature should feel compelled to authorize municipalities to opt out of a county referendum approving sales if the municipality already had, as the majority assumes, the general-ordinance power to ban all Sunday worldly activities.
I would affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division.
Justice Garibaldi joins in this opinion.
For 'reversal — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, HANDLER and POLLACK — 4.
For affirmance — Justices O’HERN and GARIBALDI — 2.

Exempted from the sweep of the Paramus ordinance are preparation and sale of drugs, meals, prepared food, perishable agricultural and horticultural products, non-alcoholic beverages, and certain alcoholic beverages; printing, publishing, and selling newspapers, magazines, and periodicals; selling and delivering milk, bread, and baked goods; walking, riding, or driving for recreation; hiring conveyances; selling gasoline for automobiles; selling and dispensing tobacco products; exhibiting, offering for sale, and selling residential dwellings, and engaging in lawful recreation, sport, or amusement.

As originally enacted, the 1951 revision contained two articles: Article 1, consisting of N.J.S.A. 2A:171-1 through -5, and Article 2, consisting of N.J.S.A. 2A: 171-6 through -12.

Although basing its decision on the arbitrariness of the classifications chosen to supplement the 1951 revision, the Court noted with respect to a blanket policy against Sunday activity that "it is difficult to find a basis under the police power for such extraordinary restraint upon individual freedom." Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, 32 N.J. 199, 217 (1960).

In their Appellate Division brief, plaintiffs set out a version of the legislative history based on contemporary news accounts. Plaintiffs state that “on the eve of [the Legislature’s] adopting the Code * * * [t]he Court’s decision in Vomado [Inc. v. Hyland] was anxiously awaited because the Code, which already had passed the Assembly, contained an express repeal of all State statutes regulating or limiting Sunday activity.” Moreover, ”[s]ome legislators were said to have anticipated that the Vomado Court would declare Chapter 119 unconstitutional and thereby insulate the Legislature from any public recrimination resulting from the repeal." No one contests plaintiffs’ account.