A bill has been filed in the New York State Assembly that would require any food service location at New York State Thruway rest stops to stay open seven days a week, threatening Chick-fil-A's policy of closing on Sundays.
“A bill in New York would require several Chick-fil-A restaurants to remain open on Sundays, contradicting the fast food chain's business practice of closing at the end of the week.
The bill, the Rest Stop Restaurant Act, would affect all food and beverage companies along the State Thruway and at the Port Authority in New York and New Jersey, requiring all of them to stay open seven days a week. Among these companies are seven Chick-fil-A locations.
‘While there is nothing objectionable about a fast food restaurant closing on a particular day of the week, service areas dedicated to travelers is an inappropriate location for such a restaurant’, reads the bill. ‘Publicly owned service areas should use their space to maximally benefit the public. Allowing for retail space to go unused one seventh of the week or more is a disservice and unnecessary inconvenience to travelers who rely on these service areas’.
Democratic state Rep. Tony Simone, one of the sponsors of the bill, argued that those who are traveling may want to eat someplace before visiting their family in the hypothetical scenario that the traveler is not a fan of their relative's cooking. Simone also said that restaurants on the Thruways are ‘meant to serve New York travelers first’ and that he believes it is ‘ridiculous’ for a restaurant to be able to close on Sunday, which is ‘one of the busiest travel days of the week’.
The bill comes after Irish convenience store chain Applegreen took control of all the leases for Thruway Authority service areas in 2021. All 27 service areas part of this $450 million project were built with no toll or tax dollars; additionally, Chick-fil-A had already signed a 33-year contract with the Thruway prior to this bill”. -Asher Notheis, Washington Examiner
Considering that the ostensibly conservative food chain decided years ago to discontinue its funding to the Salvation Army, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Paul Anderson Youth Home while instead donating to organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, it’s obvious to see that the Chick-fil-A business, like every other nominally Christian corporate entity, cares as little about maintaining supposed religious liberties as they do about honoring the Sabbath or any one of God’s commandments.