The Easter holiday break again caused much confusion and disappointment among both retailers and shoppers and, in Wanaka on Good Friday, retailers risked prosecution for breaking the law.
If inspectors from the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment were in Wanaka on Friday, then nearly every retailer would face fines.
The threat of a $1000 penalty was not enough to deter the vast majority of the town's businesses from breaching the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act 1990, which restricts most shops from opening on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Over the years, many MPs, including Waitaki's Jacqui Dean, have tried and failed to get an exemption for Wanaka and other holiday spots around the country.
Some areas already have a designation to trade on those two days, and others break the law.
Gardening centres, over the years, have been frequent flaunters of trading laws, gambling on the profit for the day easily surpassing the fines.
And what a shambles it has become.
Not only are businesses breaking the law by opening on the holidays, but others will be prosecuted for imposing a surcharge on the wrong days.
Despite Sunday being a sacred day, it was in fact Friday and Monday which were the public holidays.
Workers should have been paid extra for working and hospitality outlets were legally entitled to put on a surcharge.
The Government stands accused of deregulating Easter shop trading by stealth, by deciding to reprioritise scarce labour inspector resources and abandoning the enforcement of the Sunday trading laws.
Labour MP Darien Fenton, herself a former union official, says workers can say goodbye to a guaranteed day off.
Inspectors will respond only to complaints, rather than carrying out proactive inspections of violations of New Zealand shop trading laws.
For some, retailers not trading on Good Friday and Easter Sunday is not such a bad thing.
For many people working in New Zealand, who have faith, it gives them certainty they will have those days off.
For others, it provides a long weekend - if in fact their places of work close down.
But in the case of Wanaka, the absurdity is there for all to see.
The liquor licensing authority refused to allow bars to open for drinks, other than with dining, despite authority members being fully aware a crowd of 50,000 was expected to attend the Warbirds Over Wanaka spectacular.
With supermarkets and liquor outlets also due to be closed, people wanting food or drink needed to cart their supplies with them to the resort, rather than pumping the money straight into the local economy.
Surely it is time for retailers themselves to decide whether or not they should open in such special circumstances.
There are also claims of people being ''forced'' to work by employers during illicit trading days.
That very point is the only point worth enforcing.
If workers are given the choice of working, with adequate compensation already provided by law for those who do, the choice should be left to those who have money invested in the game.
May and June can be long, cold months for Central Otago-Lakes District retailers, coming at a shoulder season between the end of the summer tour season and the start of skiing.
Being able to trade on two extra days, without the fear of penalties, would give some surety to filling bank accounts to tide them - and their staff - over during that period.
In Otago, for instance, many workers in the hospitality industry are seasonal and welcome the chance to earn extra money while on a working holiday in the region.
New Zealand still has some of the best worker protection legislation in the world and claims of exploitation should be easily checked and dealt with by employment authorities.
The lack of cases through employment tribunals and courts is a case in point.
The situation comes back to whether individuals can make their own choices when it comes to their own enterprises.
The lack of prosecutions each year provides some guidance that authorities in Wanaka would be wise to consider in future.
