Article content continued

Shoppers appeared to be voting with their feet.

The store was packed at mid-day. There were long lines at the checkouts and shoppers leaving with bags of groceries.

Katherine Sibun told the Citizen that she worked late Thursday and didn’t have time to pick up things for the long weekend. She came to Whole Foods knowing it was planning to open and said she’d like to see the law amended.

“I don’t agree with it at all,” she said. “It’s a bit religiously exclusive. Nobody has access because of a Christian holiday — I find that problematic,” she said.

But support for Whole Foods, a U.S. retailer, was not universal.

“As Ontarians, we don’t get to pick and choose which laws we obey,” said Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod.

“Over the years I have heard from many law abiding retailers who are concerned with companies like Whole Foods who thumb their nose at the rules and by extension the Legislature, in essence creating an unlevel playing field.”

MacLeod said the company has never, in her four terms as an MPP, met with her to demand changes to the law, nor has she heard widespread suggestions that it needs to be changed.

“Until such time the Ontario Legislature considers changing retail laws, Whole Foods should stop breaking the current ones,” MacLeod said in an email.

Labour groups have also called on authorities to enforce the law and say people who work in the retail sector deserve a day off to rest and spend time with family.

The city has said it’s up to police to enforce the law.