Many Christians, including members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, take the biblical proscription “thou shalt not do any work” on the Sabbath not as a recommendation but as a commandment.
Now, a Utah legislator wants to make that edict a tad easier to heed by adding his own “thou shalt not” into state law, forbidding corporations — from Burger King to Jiffy Lube to Pizza Hut — from requiring that franchise owners open on Sunday.
“This bill is about respecting the religious beliefs and practices of those who choose to own and operate a franchise so they can choose to preserve a day of rest or worship,” Rep. Ken Ivory said in a news release. “This bill provides them with the freedom to observe the same ‘Sundays excepted’ right and expectation enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, recently announced a bill that would prevent franchisors from demanding store owners operate on Sundays unless business owners have already contracted to do so.
The news release only mentions a Sunday exemption. It doesn’t state whether the proposed measure would offer similar religious freedom protections for Friday, the Sabbath for Muslims, or Saturday, the principal worship day for Seventh-day Adventists and followers of Judaism.
The release also notes the legislation would not cover a franchise agreement already in place that stipulates a store operate on Sunday.
Ivory, who is a Latter-day Saint, did not respond to a request for comment. However, it appears the West Jordan Republican is extrapolating from Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that any bill not returned by the president “within 10 days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law.”
This is the only place where the “Sundays excepted” phrase appears in the nation’s founding document.
A potential blow for businesses
Tim Ryan, owner of the parent company of most Bout Time Pub & Grub restaurants found in Utah and Colorado, harbors significant concerns about Ivory’s proposal, which he said would be a blow to Utah’s franchised businesses — and not just in the form of lost revenue from being closed on one of shoppers’ busiest days.
Big brands, Ryan said, work best when customers can expect a similar experience regardless of the location they visit.
“McDonald’s, as a global company, is open 365 days a year all around the world,” he explained. “Suddenly a franchise owner only wants to be open six days; that’s not going to work for McDonald’s.”
Ryan also speculated that Ivory’s plan could hurt Utah’s travel and tourism industry by adding one more “quirky” law to the books that, like the state’s liquor laws, could be a turnoff for out-of-towners.
‘I don’t think this will have an impact’
Melva Sine, president and CEO of the Utah Restaurant Association, is less worried.
“I don’t think this will have an impact on most of our franchisees in the state,” Sine said, or Utah’s sterling pro-business reputation.
A chief reason is that franchisees, from day spa operators to car wash owners, agree to operating hours before opening a location.
“If you sign and agree to dates and times of operations in a franchise agreement,” Sine pointed out, “then you have to live up to the agreement you signed.”
And that goes for both parties.
“If the franchise is changing the terms of a franchisee agreement after the signing,” she said, “the franchisee should have the right under their agreement to accept or not accept any new terms being proposed.”
The Nothing Bundt Cakes factor
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) For years, Nothing Bundt Cakes promoted a culture of preserving Sunday as a day off for stores. Starting February, that will no longer be the case.
Owners of Utah’s 10 Nothing Bundt Cakes locations have a different take. From the start, the bakery franchise was known, like Chick-fil-A, for (largely) remaining closed on Sunday.
For Latter-day Saint franchisees Brad Berrett and Kelsey Hunt, this was a determining factor for picking to partner with the company in the first place.
“It was really,” said Berrett, owner of a Salt Lake City store, “the culture of Nothing Bundt Cakes.”
Then, in 2021, a private equity firm acquired the chain, and that culture began to shift. Pressure to open on Sunday mounted slowly, then all at once, with the company announcing last year that all stores would be required to welcome Sunday customers starting in February 2025.
The reason the company can do this, Hunt and Berrett explained, has to do with the contract many owners signed. Rather than specify hours, they said, the document required franchisees to keep the hours outlined in the operations manual, which company headquarters has since updated to require Sunday openings.
Nothing Bundt Cakes stands by the decision, which it attributes to customer feedback.
“We have listened to our guests,” according to a company statement, “and our decision is to provide our cakes every day of the week to help them celebrate birthdays, holidays and all of their special occasions.”
For Hunt and Berrett, the switch feels like a betrayal. Both deeply support Ivory’s proposed bill.
One Nothing Bundt Cakes franchisee who isn’t weighing in? South Jordan Republican Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, who said, “I am not part of the bill and will not be taking a public position or giving public comment.”
For its part, Nothing Bundt Cakes said it will be “watching this legislation closely.”
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