Sunday openings approved for Marbella

Sunday is the second-busiest shopping day of the week in the UK

One of the great divisive issues for British expats on the Costa del Sol will soon be no more as the Spanish parliament has agreed to grant Marbella the right to allow its businesses to open on Sundays and certain public holidays.

Currently, Spain’s national laws prohibit many businesses in Marbella from opening on Sundays. Restaurants, bars, cafes, petrol stations and OpenCor stores are allowed to open their doors, but supermarkets, retail stores and high street shops must remain closed during the official day of rest…

But Marbella will soon be added to the list of 24 cities around the country that can permit their businesses to trade on Sunday. Pressure from tourism is thought to be the key driver, with many shop owners exasperated that they are forced to miss out on a day’s worth of lucrative trade every week as Brits and other visitors stroll past shuttered shops and closed malls, often confused as to why they cannot go inside and spend the euros burning a hole in the pockets of their specially-purchased-for-their-holiday shorts.

Previously, the Spanish government decreed that only cities with a population of more than 200,000 and one million overnight stays per year could permit Sunday opening. However, in light of Spain’s recovering economy, the government has lowered that threshold to just 100,000 population and 600,000 overnight stays per year, meaning Marbella, Santander, La Coruña, Almería and Jerez can now join the likes of Málaga, Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Granada and Barcelona in offering seven-days-a-week shopping.

The move is likely to be met with equal parts of support and criticism. Many people who live in Marbella – including thousands of British expats – love that Sunday still represents a true day of rest: a day to spend time with family and friends at the beach or a favourite restaurant; a day to relax around the pool and not worry about grocery shopping or picking out a new outfit.

On the other side of the divide will be those who will welcome the fact that they no longer have to find their nearest OpenCor if they have run out of milk or the cupboards are bare, or those who simply want to while away a rare rainy Sunday afternoon in the air conditioned shelter of a shopping mall.

Whichever side of the fence you fall upon, it is difficult to argue that an extra day’s trade will help boost the local economy, adding extra hours to staff’s paychecks and extra income to proprietors of small businesses.