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Allowing Sunday sales drives opponents in Highland
Posted 11/1/12
HIGHLAND, Utah — A local businessman said his campaign signs urging voters to allow businesses to open on Sundays have been vandalized, a sign that the debate over the ballot issue may be getting heated.
The Highland City Council approved an ordinance in June allowing businesses there to operate seven days a week, except between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m., but opponents gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the November ballot.
Businessman Darwin Nimer said he put up signs to support the cause but found them stomped and crumpled this week. Nimer said he doesn’t personally believe in shopping on Sunday but supports the proposition as an issue of liberty.
He also said he believes that allowing Sunday sales could boost sales tax revenue, as long as businesses decide on their own to stay open and people decide to shop.
“I’m starting to see a little hampering of our freedom of speech,” he said. “We are not doing anything other than exercising our freedom of speech, and we want to be heard.”
Mayor Lynn Ritchie told the Daily Herald on Tuesday that he hadn’t heard any other reports of vandalism.
“We have that every election, so I’m not surprised,” he said. “People will take different candidates’ signs. It has been a problem on several elections.”
Nimer said his neighbor told him he had come across two girls removing signs in favor of Sunday sales. When the man asked the girls to stop, telling them it was illegal to tamper with the signs, the girls said they had been told to remove them by their father.
Nimer said he has spoken to Highland police, who have said they will increase patrols to keep an eye on campaign signs.