Only in New Jersey could a lawsuit about Sunday shopping be treated like the second coming of Prohibition. Paramus, the town with more malls per square mile than most states, is suing the American Dream Mall for the crime of—brace yourself—selling clothes on a Sunday. That’s right. Not illegal substances. Not bootleg fireworks. Clothes. Shirts, pants, maybe a sweater or two. The horror.
The problem, according to Paramus, is that Bergen County still enforces those good old-fashioned blue laws, the kind that were originally intended to protect the Sabbath but today mostly serve to keep traffic manageable on Route 17. On Sundays, Paramus malls go dark, their parking lots eerily quiet, their mannequins staring out at empty walkways like department store zombies. The blue laws are a civic quirk locals have learned to live with: no retail therapy on the Lord’s day, unless you count buying milk at ShopRite.
American Dream, though, apparently decided those laws were more “guidelines” than commandments. Fashion boutiques, furniture outlets, and a handful of other retailers quietly threw open their doors, welcoming shoppers desperate to swap cash for cardigans. The town of Paramus was not amused. They say the mega-mall made a promise when it opened in 2019 to abide by the laws of the land—or at least the laws of Bergen County—and now that promise has been broken like a dropped snow globe in the Dream’s indoor ski park.
So Paramus lawyered up. The lawsuit isn’t just about principle—it’s about fines, potentially thousands of dollars per Sunday, and about leveling the playing field. After all, every other mall in Paramus plays by the rules, sacrificing one of the most lucrative days of the week on the altar of tradition. American Dream, in contrast, tried to make Sunday its fashion runway, and Paramus isn’t having it.
Shoppers, of course, are divided. Some shrug and say, “Finally, a place to buy socks on a Sunday.” Others shake their heads at the sheer audacity of it all. Blue laws may be outdated, but they’ve become part of Bergen County’s identity, like diners, jug handles, and traffic jams. To defy them is to court both legal trouble and neighborhood shade.
And while this retail soap opera was playing out, national headlines were stolen by another bit of drama: the abrupt ouster of CDC Director Susan Menendez. In one of those surreal juxtapositions only American news can deliver, the same day Paramus declared war on sweaters-for-sale, the new administration was announcing a shake-up at the top of public health. Less than a month into his tenure, Robert Kennedy Jr. made it clear that Menendez was no longer running the CDC. The timing made for an odd split-screen moment: local officials in New Jersey fretting over shopping bags while the federal government was busy rearranging the public health deck chairs.
The American Dream story, though, is far from over. The mall is massive, its ambitions even bigger, and its history of financial woes and management controversies suggests it won’t back down without a fight. Paramus, meanwhile, has centuries of puritanical shopping restrictions on its side, not to mention the moral high ground of every traffic-weary commuter who secretly enjoys one day a week when the mall parking lots aren’t clogged with SUVs.
So here we are, a developing saga with all the makings of a Garden State melodrama: a mall too flashy for its own good, a town too stubborn to bend, and a law so anachronistic it borders on comedy. American Dream wanted to sell jeans on Sunday. Paramus wants to keep the Sabbath sacred—or at least keep the traffic down. Who wins? Stay tuned. In New Jersey, even shopping bags can spark a courtroom showdown.
