Mayor John Tory says the city’s holiday shopping rules don’t make sense to him but he won’t try to shake them up.

Like every Hogtown holiday, anyone in Toronto wanting to get some shopping done on Victoria Day Monday had to either go to retailers open in designated tourism zones, like the Eaton Centre, or head to open shopping centres outside the city.

Tory doubted City Hall will wade into the issue on his watch because attempts to try to change those rules during the last two terms of council fizzled out faster than a bad Victoria Day fireworks show.

“I don’t think there is any appetite to deal with it at council,” Tory told the Sun. “It has come three times and every time (council has) sort of punted on it.

“It isn’t just about different areas of Toronto that are at a disadvantage, all of Toronto is almost at a disadvantage relative to other municipalities in Ontario because they operate under different laws and they’ve pretty well all taken a more liberal approach to opening on some of the holidays.”

Back in 2010, economic development staff recommended allowing all retail stores to open or close at their own discretion on New Year’s Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

Council at that time, sent the issue back to staff to conduct further consultations.

In 2012, staff recommended the rules be changed to give all retailers across the city the option to open their doors any time between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day and Thanksgiving Day. Under those proposed changes, businesses would still have to be closed on five of the public holidays: New Year’s Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day.

The economic development committee balked at those proposed changes and instead recommended that Victoria Day should be the lone holiday when businesses could opt to open. Council rejected that watered down proposal and voted 36 to 7 to leave the current rules in place.

“I just don’t see any appetite to deal with it,” Tory said. “I’m busy dealing with transit and housing so I don’t really have any intention to sort of make a crusade out of it on my own.”

But that doesn’t mean Tory agrees with the city’s current rules.

“When we talk about the diverse society in which we live, we have to respect the fact that that diversity extends to well beyond sexual orientation, skin colour and nationality and goes to people’s faith, which is a different mix than it used to be, people’s hours of work - there is huge diversity in that,” he said.

“By having these kind of patchwork rules that are different between municipalities, different as between parts of the city, you don’t do what we do in almost every other area when it comes to diversity which is to accommodate people’s differences in terms of their lives.

“If there was a big groundswell of opinion on council to move forward and do something about it, I’d be happy to show some leadership on it. But when they repeatedly just have things put in front of them and bury them, I just don’t think we should spend more time on that.”