Put A Stop to 24hr Shopping

A lot of the big box stores not are going 24hrs. Got a hankering to fix your deck at 3am? Hop on over to the building supply store. Wal-Mart is open 24/7 for those who need to but an HDTV to watch the graveyard shift TV shows. This is certainly an interesting trend but its definitely having some major ramifications on society. As the world moves at a faster and faster pace, it seems like we need to be in demand at all hours of the day, every day of the year. As was argued in the Sun a couple of weeks ago, this 24hr shopping is harming us as a society because we're moving at a pace we're not designed for.

Then there are the other consequences. Crime and labour issues. Both are connected. Here in Milton, when shops began to open 24hrs, there was an increase in robberies. The old A&P was robbed less than a week after opening 24hrs. These stores are a magnet for crime since the tills are open but there are no witnesses in the store. People working the graveyard shift are usually naive teenagers who these criminals easily take advantage of. Continence stores and gas stations that are open late have always been the target of robberies. Why would Wal-Mart or the grocery store be any different in such circumstances? The issue with labour comes when these kids get hurt in the robberies, such as a young Quebec woman who was killed in a gas station robbery a couple years ago while she was working the graveyard shift.

I think it's time we looked at ourselves as a society. We need to slow down. No store needs to be open 24hrs a day. There's just not enough people doing shift work that justifies it. All these places do is attract crime. I think we need to ban 24hr shopping. That way, stores and the people who work in them won't be easy targets for would be criminals.