Jill Schramm/MDN Shoppers come and go from Dakota Square Mall Friday. The mall will open at 11 a.m. Sunday with the elimination of North Dakota’s Blue law.

Dakota Square Mall will be opening at 11 a.m. this Sunday, while Walmart’s 24-hour operation now extends to Sundays.

This Sunday marks a change in North Dakota’s Blue laws, which have restricted the hours that businesses can operate on Sundays. With the exception of certain types of businesses, most merchandise sales have not been allowed before noon. The lifting of the restriction lets stores set their own hours, and the result is a collection of varying opening times among Minot stores.

Target, Home Depot and Menards are changing their opening time to 8 a.m. Kmart will open at 9 a.m. Home of Economy, Gordmans, Best Buy, Kohl’s, T.J. Maxx and Ulta Beauty are among stores opening at 10 a.m. Scheels, J.C. Penney and Barnes & Noble are following the mall opening time of 11 a.m.

North Dakota had one of the strictest Blue laws in the United States, banning most goods and items from being sold between midnight and noon on Sunday.

The debate to end Sunday closing and the lawsuits over it go back decades. From statehood to 1967, all businesses were closed from 12 a.m. Sunday to 12 a.m. Monday. In 1967, erosion began occurring with a gradual easing of the laws to enable people to eat out and buy groceries or other necessary items. A law change in 1991 allowed businesses to open at noon, but efforts to fully repeal the law, although numerous since the 1980s, always failed.

A Democrat-sponsored bill in the 2017 Legislature that attempted to eliminate the prohibition to compete with the internet and surrounding states was the last to fail. A Republican-sponsored bill finally passed the Senate 25-21 and the House 56-35 in the 2019 session. Gov. Doug Burgum signed the bill last March, and it took effect Aug. 1.