This is actually becoming a big talked about issue here believe it or not. Story here:
http://www.twincities.com/2017/03/13/minneapolis-slaps-surdyks-liquor-with-fine-license-suspension-for-opening-last-sundayIn a nutshell:
Surdyk's is a HUGE liquor store in Minneapolis, no doubt the largest in the city. It advertises itself and is often described as being in Northeast Minneapolis but is in reality much closer to downtown and serves as the place to go for wine snobs, people seeking expensive imports, people willing to pay high three digit prices for bottles of aged scotch, etc. About a month ago, Governor Dayton signed a bill that legalized Sunday liquor sales in Minnesota, the last state in the region to not allow them on Sundays...but the bill didn't go into effect until July 2. Surdyk's decided to "celebrate" this by opening on Sunday anyway and held a massive PR storm, people everywhere flooded in and it had its largest day of sales in years. Once the city learned of this the owner was given multiple phone calls advising him this was still illegal and asking him to close, but the owner basically just told them to "f[inks] off" each time. The city could've dispatched police to actually forcibly shut the store down but wisely decided this wouldn't be the most effective use of police resources especially with how many officers would be needed and Surdyk's remained open all day.
Now the city has decided to fine Surdyk's...and suspend its license for 30 days, starting July 2. The first Sunday liquor sales are allowed in Minnesota. The fine was $3500, later reduced to $2000. That itself isn't a big deal, the sales they made no doubt were well over that, but the suspension is obviously attracting controversy.
Most local media and commentary on this has been overwhelmingly on the side of Surdyk's, many saying the law was unjust and silly anyway and compared it to Rosa Parks, which I'll admit is pretty ridiculous. I mean I'd argue in regards to things like defying the too high drinking age and using marijuana that disobedience of the law is perfectly fine, but a law restricting the hours of liquor stores is nowhere near that unfair or unjust. Also many people are saying there was no victim, but this isn't true: The victims are the other liquor stores in Minneapolis. Surdyk's got a ton of business that Sunday, no other store was competing, and people who bought their fill that day won't buy it at any other store, but they might've had Surdyk's not been open and they had to wait for a legal day to go shopping. Based on that, I think this was an asshole thing to do.
But the suspension is unfair too. The main people punished by that will be the employees of Surdyk's now out of a job for a month, and they had nothing to do with it.
I think the most fair thing to do would be to levy a fine that's about what their estimated profits that day were (which ironically would be no doubt far higher than $3500), and then give a one day suspension on July 2. Surdyk's is probably OK with this, since they still got all the PR buzz, no one loses their job for an extended period, no profit is made from this, and we can all forget it.
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