A major test of the constitutionality of New York’s Sunday-closing law began today in Brooklyn Criminal Court at a hearing in which testimony will be given by spokesmen for the city’s major newspapers, radio-TV stations, department stores and movie theatres.
The Sunday law challenge is being made by the American Jewish Congress, which has provided legal counsel for Charles Pam, an Orthodox Jewish grocer of Brooklyn charged with selling a can of tuna and a jar of baby food during prohibited hours on Sunday.
Marvin M. Karpatkin, an officer of the American Jewish Congress who is representing Mr. Pam, said he would seek to prove that the New York State Sabbath law has been enforced only against small merchants like Mr. Pam but not against large firms that he said “are in clear and direct violation” of the law.
“On the basis of testimony adducing discriminatory enforcement of the law,” Mr. Karpatkin said, “we will seek to have the criminal information against Mr. Pam dismissed and the prosecution quashed as violations of the Federal and State Constitutions.” We will seek to show:
“1. That the New York Sabbath law is an unnecessary infringement upon the Constitutional rights of persons who observe a day other than Sunday as their day of rest.”
“2. That the law imposes an economic hardship on persons like Mr. Pam who, in good faith, close their places of business for religious reasons on a day other than Sunday; and”
“3. That the Police Department, by cracking down against a grocery store operator like Mr. Pam, while ignoring other and far more serious violators of the statute, is guilty of discriminatory enforcement of the law, thus causing a denial of equal protection as guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
“If the law is to be enforced,” the American Jewish Congress spokesman declared, “it should be enforced against all who violate the statute–among them: every radio and TV station that broadcasts on Sunday; every newspaper whose editorial and mechanical staffs work on Sunday; every drug store that sells cosmetics, toys and similar items on Sunday; every service station that sells anything besides gasoline, oil and tires on Sunday; every news stand that sells books on Sunday. If the law is unenforceable equally, it should be amended or abolished.”
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