MANCHESTER (JTA) — A kosher restaurant in England was not allowed to have a stall at a market because it refused to open on Shabbat.
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The owner of Ta’am Grill and Deli in Prestwich alleged discrimination after the organizers of the Christmas market in Manchester nixed its booth.
“The Manchester Jewish community has nowhere kosher to eat in the city center, permanent or not,” owner Martine Vaizman told the Jewish Telegraph. “We can’t even feel normal at the Christmas Markets because there is not one food stall we can eat at.”
The Manchester City Council said vendors at the market had to agree to stay open for the entirety of the event.
“Although we understand that this was due to religious restrictions on work on those days, the trader had originally agreed for their stall to be open throughout,” a spokesman for the council told the Jewish Telegraph. “It would be detrimental to the wider market for any stall to close on two of the busiest days throughout the season.”
Most kosher restaurants close from Friday to Saturday evening to avoid violating prohibitions against doing work on Shabbat.
Time waster alert,
How nice, a Kosher food stall in a Christmas shopping area,
As an attorney, I’ve represented many tenants in negotiating leases for stores in big malls in the New York City area. I have yet to encounter a lease in these shopping centers which allows for a store to be Shomer Shabbos. All leases generally require stores to be open seven days per week.
Shame on the Manchester authorities, for this blatant discrimination. I spoke to a visitor from the UK, who spent some time in the USA. He told me that he was amazed that at Chanukah time, the local tv stations, as well as the network/cable channels, would wish the viewers a “Happy Chanukah”. He stated that never happens in the UK. Do I need to say more?
Welcome to Rockland County:
We don’t have a kosher dining option at either the shops at nanuet or the palisades mall.
Please! Enough! They could have made a Halachic arrangement with a gentile to keep the store open over Shabes as long as the guy would keep all the profits from the outset of Shabes Friday night until its end on Shabes night!
It’s done all the time. So stop this needles farce!
This is standard procedure in nearly all malls, to have the stores open 7 days a week. The Kosher store signed the lease saying they would remain open 7 days a week and then they cant uphold their agreement.
If it is so worthwhile for them to open a kosher store there, then there would be a permanent kosher store in the area.