Costco’s newly announced store will face unique challenge due to 'sacred' laws that date back centuries (2024)

Costco is coming to a New Jersey city, but this particular store will have to comply with unusual restrictions that its other locations do not have to deal with.

Paramus, which is in Bergen County not far from New York City, has the nation's strictest blue laws, according to Mayor Chris DiPiazza, who refers to them as "sacred." Blue laws prohibit the sale of goods that are not considered a necessity on Sundays, DiPiazza said.

"Gives us our roads, our residential neighborhoods a day of rest from the traffic and the noise," DiPiazza told FOX Business over the phone about the centuries-old practice.

If approved, the Costco location will not have a gas station, nor an exemption from blue laws listed as Chapter 391 in Paramus' code.

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Shoppers walk through the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall on Black Friday in Paramus, New Jersey, on Nov. 29, 2019. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via / Getty Images)

That means customers will not be able to walk in and buy a television on a Sunday, DiPiazza said. The store will operate like nearby competitor BJ's Wholesale Club, which is open but restricts the sale of non-essential items.

DiPiazza said Costco will either need to rope off areas with items not available to purchase on Sundays, or their cashiers must know not to sell certain items.

According to the Bergen Record, the local newspaper, New Jersey first saw such a law in 1704, and in 1798 it became part of a statewide "Act to Suppress Vice and Immorality." In 1959, the state allowed individual counties to decide for themselves whether to keep such restrictions. As of 1985, Bergen County has been the only one to keep blue laws in place, with repeal attempts voted down in 1980 and 1993, according to the Record, with Paramus having blue laws that go beyond those of the rest of the county.

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Customers walk by the membership counter at a Costco store on July 11, 2024, in Richmond, California. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Last Thursday, the mayor of the borough, which is home to more than 26,000 people according to census records, announced on Facebook that Costco Wholesale submitted their plans to Paramus' planning board for a location on Route 17 South, where a former K-Mart and Stop & Shop once were. The location has sat empty for about two years, DiPiazza said.

"I love Costco and hate having to go to Teterboro to get my wholesale shopping," one Facebook user wrote in response to the mayor's post. "I am very excited to have one in such close proximity to my childhood home. It will make saving on every day items that much more convenient!"

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A shopper pays with cash at a Best Buy store in Paramus, New Jersey, on Nov. 25, 2016. (Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg via / Getty Images)

DiPiazza said feedback to his post has been "95% positive," but there are some people concerned about traffic and other retail activity in the area.

"Paramus Park is a ghost town, the Fashion Center is hanging on by a thread," one local wrote on Facebook. "Garden State Plaza Stores small retail shops are turning over faster and faster. At some point you have to realize we are in trouble."

Customers in the self checkout lines at Costco in Queens, New York. (Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via / Getty Images)

Costco does not respond to inquiries about store openings more than three months away. The Paramus store's completion is estimated to be by spring 2026, local TV station News 12 New Jersey reported.

Paramus has the lowest tax rate in Bergen County, DiPiazza said. He said news of Costco has quickly spread through the "big little town." The Costco plans should be in front of the planning board by October.

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"An improvement like this strengthens our commercial corridor, increases ratables, and continues to make Paramus the heart of Bergen County," DiPiazza wrote on Facebook.