by Angela Hill, Guest opinion
Tuesday December 09, 2008, 11:35 AM
According to a recent article in The Oregonian, the Oregon Auto Dealers Association, or OADA, "will ask Oregon law makers to impose 'Blue Laws' prohibiting auto sales on Sundays. The independent auto dealers, consumers and the state of Oregon would all fall victim to this imbalanced proposal.
Jeff Manning of the Oregonian quoted Greg Remensperger, VP of the Oregon Auto Dealers Association, as saying, "Closing down for the day would cut dealer cost and give workers a break." The OADA is, according to their website, an association representing approximately 200 "franchise new car dealers". They do not, however, represent the more than 800 independent dealers who belong to the OIADA or the 500 belonging to the OVDA.
Dealers statewide would be adversely affected by the suggested law. John Hill, General Manager of Affordable Auto Wholesale has calculated that "13% of their gross profit is generated by Sunday sales". " Sunday is also one of our least expensive days for overhead," he says, "all of our staff is commission based and we pay rent whether we are open or not." Eric Holden, a finance manager at Mr. Hill's store, says that he would expect to lose about "$12,000 a year" as a commission-based employee.
The Oregonian article says that Vicki Giles Fabre, VP of the Washington State Auto Dealers Association says "her dealers are not advocating similar 'blue laws'" in Washington. It's not hard to speculate that Washington dealers would absorb the Sunday business of Oregon consumers since they will not be asked to close under the pending legislation. This will reduce the amount of total revenue shared by all auto dealers in Oregon. The measure also seems to lack empathy for the consumers, limiting the time that they have for shopping without consideration of their schedules. Tony Paola, Used car manager at Payless auto sales says, "People want cars, they have limited days off, Sundays are one of the days people can shop".
Pre-owned dealers everywhere seem to be asking "what about us?" and wondering why the franchise dealers have set forth to impose a law restricting the way they practice business. Monty King, The President of the Oregon Vehicle Dealer Association says that "his dealers are about 9 to 1 against" the measure. He says that he "doesn't think that blue laws are enforceable" because "websites would still be up and people would still be responding to emails." It is questionable whether this law would violate antitrust law which, according to Wikipedia, prohibits agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business entities.
The general consensus seems to be that while pre-owned dealers understand and sympathize with the blight that new car stores are facing, they ask, with over whelming enthusiasm, "Please don't put us out of business in an attempt to save your selves." Monty King says, "If they want to be closed on Sunday, let them close on Sunday."