Request By:
Mr. Sam W. Arnold, III
Assistant Harrison County Attorney
16 East Pike Street
Cynthiana, Kentucky 41031
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your question was stated as follows:
"Are businesses, exempted by KRS 436.160 (more specifically, groceries stores and drug stores), in violation of the said statute when they sell items such as record albums, lawn chairs, radios, cameras, and other items which are not related drug items or related perishable food items? "
KRS 436.160(3) reads:
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"(3) Subsection (1) of this section shall not apply to amateur sports, athletic games, or operation of grocery stores whose principal business is the sale of groceries and related food items, drug stores whose principal business is the sale of drugs and related drug items, gift shops, souvenir shops, fishing tackle shops and bait shops, moving picture shows, chautauquas, filling stations or opera."
We assume that the grocery store's "principal" business is the sale of groceries and related food items, and that the drug store's "principal" business is the sale of drugs and related drug items. (Emphasis added). Note that subsection (3) provides that the prohibition against Sunday business opening shall not apply to the "operation of grocery stores" whose principal business, etc., nor to the "operation of drug stores" whose principal business, etc. (Emphasis added). This, in our opinion, seems to highlight, in terms of an exception to the Sunday closing law, the idea that if the store qualifies as one whose principal business is the sale of groceries and related food items or one whose principal business is the sale of drugs and related drug items, the entire operation of such qualifying grocery and drug stores is excepted from the Sunday closing law. This means in practical terms that the qualifying grocery store may sell non-grocery or non-food related items, normally carried in stock, on Sundays. This means that the qualifying drug store may sell on Sundays non-drug or non-drug related items normally carried in stock.
The critical point is that the statute, in excepting certain grocery stores and drug stores, in no way puts the exception to Sunday closing on a fragmented or partial basis. There is no attempt to segregate, as relates to permissible sales, in the qualifying grocery store, for example, the groceries and related food items from the non-grocery and non-food related items. In practical essence, it is all or none. If the store qualifies, the exception covers everything they sell from normally held stock.
In summary, a qualifying grocery or drug store may sell on Sundays such items as record albums, lawn chairs, radios, cameras and other items not related to food or drugs if such items are normally carried in stock. The statute, KRS 436.160(3), clearly and unambiguously states that the Sunday closing shall not apply to the operation of certain grocery and drug stores. We must accept the statute as it is written. Commonwealth v. Glover, 132 Ky. 588, 116 S.W. 769 (1909). In addition, this is a practical construction when one considers that in a grocery store food and non-food items are in juxtaposition to each other and are scattered all over the place. The same is true of drugs and non-drugs. See Nuetzel v. Will, 210 Ky. 453, 276 S.W. 137 (1925). In the latter case, at page 138, Judge Thomas wrote that one of the principles of statutory construction is that "the language should receive a practical construction, and be so interpreted as to preserve and carry out the purpose in its enactment in such a manner as to remove all hindrance from its easy and simple compliance." The basic purpose in KRS 436.160(3) is to establish exceptions to the Sunday closing law on a total business or store operation basis, and not on a category of merchandise basis. Our construction is thus a practical one as well as a literal one. If the legislature had intended something other than a complete grocery and drug store operation exemption, it could have easily so provided.