Sandy, Schmandy, the Stores are Open!

Major weather events can be slippery slopes for politicians. Local officials, from New York mayor John Lindsay in 1968 to New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin in 2005, have seen their careers slide because of what they did or didn’t do.

Despite his heft, New Jersey governor Chris Christie has always seemed pretty adroit on those slopes. Patrolling the Jersey shoreline in his windbreaker, scowling and barking, he looks like your neighbor who’s taking charge, not somebody who spent hours deciding whether jeans or khakis would make the best photo opp.

But apparently, one of his post-Sandy decisions has brought him some unexpected controversy.

If you tell some Jersey guy that the roads are crowded and lines long to get into the Garden State Plaza, he’ll likely shrug and tell you to get out of his way; where do you think he’s headed?

The intersection of Routes 4 and 17 in Paramus, N.J., is one of the busiest in the country, a nexus of mall activity where the Garden State Plaza, Bergen Town Center, Paramus Park Mall, Riverside Square and others keep the roads packed.

But never on Sunday. Until last weekend, blue laws dating from 1854 made sure these stores observed the Sabbath. Christie suspended the regulations so that people could get out and stock up on necessities – a generator, some dry bed linens, that trendy wool wraparound scarf.

And the reactions were? Mixed and loud. I lived in New Jersey for 20 years. The only way to get people to agree on anything is – oh, wait, there isn’t any way.

Paramus mayor Richard LaBarbiera called it “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” “I defy anybody to tell me that more than a fraction of people coming and taking advantage of this are buying items they lost as a result of the storm,” he told various local news media. He called for selective enforcement in which people could buy only essentials – “not $800 shoes.”

He was overruled by Bergen County executive Kathleen Donovan, who won a court order suspending all blue laws. “I would remind the mayor that it’s one day, and we hope that he and the residents of Paramus would have compassion for what these people have suffered through and what they’ve lost,” Jeanne Baratta, Donovan’s chief of staff, told The New York Times. “Who are we to tell them what they should be buying, what they shouldn’t be buying and what they need to replace?”

And what about the shoppers themselves, digging out from Sandy’s wrath? “Shopping is essential! How can they say shopping isn’t essential?” Rhonda Chaudhary, of Fairview, N.J., told The Times. Besides, she said, “we have relatives in California, so we have to mail their presents in early December. And we’ve already lost a week of shopping because of the storm.”

Ah, yes. Some communities may cling to their guns and their Bibles. But Jersey communities cling to their inalienable rights – and their Macy’s coupons.