OK, here's a blue laws explanation. It's all about STANDARDS and QUALITY OF LIFE. It's not really about religion, although that is the legal basis for the blue laws. Here in NJ, especially Bergen County, we set certain standards that the rest of the world doesn't have, in order to protect our quality of life. For instance, NJ is the only state that doesn't allow motorists to pump their own gas. This is so we can sit in the climate controlled environment of our car (during the snow and cold, rainstorms, or humid heat) and be serviced. Why the rest of the country doesn't want this is mind-boggling. We also spend more money per pupil on education than any other state, and that's the high standard we demand.
Back to the Blue Laws --- Quality of life is more important than retail, at least on one day of the week. We need one day of the week where the focus of our lives is not the materialism of the world, but is instead ourselves. For some people, it means going to church, but to others it means spending time with family and friends, hiking or walking in the park, reading a book, or just relaxing, all without the madness of traffic jams polluting the air with smoke and noise, and without the greed of consumerism. This special day, this "day of rest", doesn't mean shopping. For young adults who work retail, this day of rest means not having to work on Sunday, and that's part of their quality of life to spend time with family and friends. Otherwise, they'd all be forced to work weekends, and would have two days off during the week, out of sync with everyone else's schedule.
There is too much commercialism and materialism in our society, to the detriment of all of us. I am proud to live in the last remaining county in America, Bergen County, that has the sanity to place human quality of life needs above commercialism, even if it is only one day per week. By the way, I'm totally against billboards and cluttered advertising in neighborhood locations for exactly the same reasoning --- too much intrusion of commercialism into our daily life. I think all the other counties in NJ and America should look and learn from our example. I think it's funny that the good folk in the Bible Belt of America look down upon us as a bunch of aethists, yet in Bergen County we have the blue laws that keep stores closed, and they don't......lol.
I remember a few years back a conservative-looking couple with Midwestern license plates on their car stopped me at a red light in Paramus, and asked why all the malls were closed. "Has there been some sort of disaster, we have the radio on and everything seems normal", they said. I told them, half-jokingly: "Today is Sunday, the world was created in six days, and the Lord wants Sunday to be the day of rest. It's a day to worship God and spend time with your family and friends, it's not a day for shopping. You're in Bergen County, New Jersey, this is the law here, and this is how we want it to be". They looked at me as if it was some sort of epiphany, smiled with contentment, and drove away.