If you’ve been debating the issue of the two New World supermarkets in Wanaka breaking Easter trading laws repeatedly, including this year, I reckon you probably fall into one of two camps.

Camp one- It gets on your nerves because these guys are quite clearly deliberately breaking the law, given they’ve done it three out of the last four years and have been fined twice already. And they shouldn't do that, because laws are there to be followed.

And if you think that, you're a hypocrite, because everyone breaks the law a little bit sometimes. Whether it’s driving 60k in a 50k zone or checking your phone at the traffic lights or taking a beer to the beach when it’s an alcohol free zone- you do it.

Or you fall into camp two and you love it- and I'm in this camp.

I love it! Because this law is dumb. You know it, I know it, and every time those New Worlds in Wanaka open their doors and invite prosecution, then get prosecuted and then just do it again the next year, it just underscores how dumb this law is and reminds us we can’t just leave it like that, we have to get rid of it.

The law is dumb because all it is is inconvenient. All it does is catch out all the people who turn up to Warbirds over Wanaka or the Coromandel or Hawkes Bay or wherever and either forgot the shops were shut or ran out of time to bring groceries.

It's dumb because the punishment for breaking the law and opening the shop is so low it’s not worth obeying the law. The maximum fine is $1000, who cares? A supermarket would make that in minutes.

So if the law is stupid, which it is, and if it hasn’t got the buy-in of the community anymore, which I'm certain it doesn't, and it's being wilfully ignored by the shops, then go New World.

I reckon New World isn’t flouting the law for altruistic reasons, that's stupid. They're probably just breaking the law to make money.

But I appreciate the good it's doing to undermine an outdated and inconvenient rule - which is just a pain nowadays. 

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