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10 NOVEMBER 2006. - Trade, Craft and Services Opening Hours Act (1)

ALBERT II, King of the Belgians,
To all, present and to come, Hi.
The Chambers adopted and We sanction the following:
CHAPTER I^er. - Scope of application
Article 1^er. This Act regulates a matter referred to in Article 78 of the Constitution.
Art. 2. For the purposes of this Act:
1° "detail trade": the usual resale of goods to the consumer, without having to undergo these goods other than the usual manipulations in the trade that require the physical and simultaneous presence of the seller and the consumer in the establishment unit. For the purposes of this Act, sales of products to consumers are considered by producers or their representatives;
2° "services" : all benefits that:
- constitutes a commercial act or an artisanal activity;
- and are normally provided against compensation in the service provider's establishment unit;
- and which do not fall within the definition of retail trade referred to in 1°.
3° "commercial act": acts qualified as commercial, as defined by the Commercial Code;
4° "artisan activity": an activity carried out by a company founded by a private person who provides in Belgium, under a contract for the rental of services, mainly material benefits, provided that they do not accompany any delivery of goods or that they take place on an occasional basis, and that is thus presumed to have the quality of craftsman;
5° "consumer": any natural or legal person who, for exclusively non-professional purposes, acquires or uses products or services marketed;
6° "establishment unit": a geographically identifiable location by an address and accessible to the consumer where the activities to which this Act applies;
7° "net commercial surface": the surface intended for sale and accessible to the consumer including uncovered surfaces. This area includes body spaces, spaces at the back of the boxes and entrance halls if they are also used to expose or sell goods;
8° "private telecommunications office": any establishment unit accessible to the public for the provision of telecommunications services;
9° Night shop: any establishment unit with a net commercial surface not exceeding 150 m², which does not carry out any other activity than the sale of general food products and household goods and that displays permanently and apparent the mention of "night shop";
10° « seaside resort » : common whose territory touches the coastline;
11° "the minister": the minister who has the middle classes in his duties.
Art. 3. The Act applies to retail trade. At the request of representative professional federations or on the initiative of the minister, the King may exclude certain sectors of the retail trade from the scope of the law or certain provisions of the law.
Art. 4. The Act also applies to services designated by the King, at the request of representative professional federations or on the initiative of the Minister.
Art. 5. The Act also applies to private telecommunications offices.
CHAPTER II. - Mandatory closing hours
Art. 6. Consumer access to the establishment unit and the sale of products or services to the consumer in the establishment unit are prohibited:
(a) before 5 a.m. and after 9 p.m. on Friday and working days before a legal holiday. If the legal holiday is a Monday, an extension up to 21 hours is allowed on the preceding Saturday;
(b) before 5 hours and after 20 hours, other days;
(c) before 6 p.m. and after 7 a.m. in night shops, unless a communal regulation fixes other closing hours;
(d) before 5 hours and after 20 hours in private offices for telecommunications unless a communal regulation provides for other closing hours.
Art. 7. Consumers present at the time of closure can be served. However, they are required to leave the establishment unit no later than fifteen minutes after the closing time.
CHAPTER III. - Weekly stay
Art. 8. Consumer access to the establishment unit, direct sale of products or services to the consumer and home delivery is prohibited for an uninterrupted period of 24 hours beginning on Sunday at 5 a.m. or 1 p.m. and ending on the following day at the same time.
Art. 9. Every merchant or service provider may choose another day of rest weekly than that referred to in section 8, beginning the day chosen at 5 o'clock or 1 o'clock and ending the next day at the same time.
Art. 10. The merchant or service provider who has chosen another day of weekly rest, cannot sell on Sunday other products or take other services than those he sells or usually provides.
Art. 11. When the weekly day of rest immediately precedes a legal holiday, the merchant or service provider has the ability to postpone the day after the legal holiday.
Art. 12. Weekly rest day must be taken on the same day for at least six months.
Art. 13. The merchant or service provider who chooses another day of weekly rest than the one referred to in section 8 mentions clearly and visibly from the outside, the day of rest and the time of commencement.
Art. 14. Traders and service providers who have not chosen on a day other than Sunday as a weekly rest day may waive the obligation under section 8 to assume the Sunday guard of their profession.
CHAPTER IV. - Derogations
Art. 15. At the request of one or more merchants or craftsmen acting in their personal name or at the request of a group of merchants or craftsmen, the College of Bourgmestre and Echevins may grant, for special and non-shared circumstances or on the occasion of fairs and markets, exemptions from the prohibitions referred to in Articles 6 and 8 to the establishment units located in the territory of the municipality or in part of it.
These exemptions may not exceed fifteen days per year.
Art. 16. § 1^er. The prohibitions referred to in section 6 and section 8 do not apply to:
(a) sales at the home of a consumer other than the purchaser, provided that the sale takes place in the inhabited part of a dwelling exclusively used for private purposes;
(b) home sales made at the invitation of the consumer, for which the customer has expressly requested the prior visit of the seller, in order to negotiate the purchase of a product or service;
(c) sales and services in the establishment units of public transport companies and in stations operated directly or indirectly by the SNCB-Holding or its subsidiaries, as well as in the real estate unit where these stations are located;
(d) sales and services in airports and port areas open to international passenger traffic;
(e) services to be performed in the event of compelling need;
(f) sales, in gasoline stations or establishment units located on the highways area, of an assortment of general foodstuffs and household items, with the exception of distilled alcoholic beverages and yeast-based beverages with a volume of alcohol exceeding 6%, provided that the net commercial surface does not exceed 250 m².
The fact that the consumer accepts a visit offer at the seller's initiative does not constitute an invitation within the meaning of point b).
§ 2. These prohibitions do not apply more to establishment units whose main activity is the sale of the following products:
(a) newspapers, magazines, tobacco products and smokers, telephone cards and national lottery products;
(b) audiovisual works and video games, as well as their rental;
(c) fuel and oil for motor vehicles;
(d) Ice cream in individual portions;
(e) food prepared in the establishment unit and not consumed.
It is a matter of a primary activity where, outside the establishment unit, it is only referred to this activity, that it is only made of advertising for this activity, that the choice of other products is limited and that the sale of the product or products constituting the main activity, represents at least 50% of the annual turnover.
§ 3. On the proposal of the Minister, the King may complete the list of trade and crafts sectors in § 1^er and the list of main activities referred to in § 2.
Art. 17. The prohibitions referred to in Article 6 (a) and (b) and Article 8 are not applicable in seaside stations and municipalities or parts of municipalities recognized as tourist centres.
The King determines what to hear by tourist centres, which he determines the criteria and the procedure of recognition.
CHAPTER V. - Provisions specific to night shops and private offices for telecommunications
Art. 18. § 1^er. A municipal by-law may submit any proposed operation of a night shop or a private office for telecommunications to a prior authorization issued by the College of Bourgmestre and Echevins of the commune where the night shop or private office for the projected telecommunications will be operated.
This authorization may be denied on the basis of objective criteria, such as the spatial location of the store establishment unit and the maintenance of public order, security and calm, which must be clarified in a communal regulation.
§ 2. This communal regulation may also be based on the spatial location and maintenance of public order, security and calm, limiting the establishment and operation of night shops and private offices for telecommunications to a part of the territory of the commune, without it being able to lead to a general prohibition or a quantitative limitation of this type of implantation in the territory of the commune.
§ 3. The mayor may order the closure of the night shops and private offices for the telecommunications operated in contravention of the communal regulations or the decision of the college of the bourgmestre and chevins carried out in accordance with §§ 1^er and 2.
CHAPTER VI. - Criminal provisions
Art. 19. § 1^er. Federal and local police officers and officers, as well as the Inspectors and Comptrollers of the Directorate General Control and Mediation of the Federal Public Service Economics, Average Classes, SMEs and Energy, are empowered to investigate and detect offences under this Act.
These officials and officers shall file minutes which shall prove the contrary and a copy thereof shall be sent to the offender within 30 days, barely null and void.
§ 2. In the exercise of their function, the agents mentioned in § 1^er may require assistance from local or federal police.
Art. 20. In the exercise of their function, these agents may:
1° enter, during opening or working hours, in the establishments, buildings, adjacent courses and closed spaces to which they must have access for the fulfilment of their mission;
2to make all useful findings, to be produced, on first requisition and without displacement, the data, documents, documents or books required for their research and findings and to take a copy thereof;
3° seize, against receipt, the data and documents listed in point 2°, necessary to prove an offence or to search for co-authors or accomplices of offenders;
4° if they have reason to believe that an offence exists, enter the inhabited premises; visits to inhabited premises must be carried out by at least two officers with the prior authorization of the police court judge.
Art. 21. Where an offence to the provisions of this Act is found, the agents referred to in section 20 may send a warning to the offender to terminate the act. The notice shall be notified to the offender within three weeks of the date of the finding of the facts, by a registered letter to the position with acknowledgement of receipt or by a copy of the notice of the facts.
The warning mentions:
(a) the facts charged and the legal provisions infringed;
(b) the time limit for termination;
(c) in the event that the warning is not followed, the King's Attorney shall be notified of it.
Art. 22. § 1^er. Offences to the prohibitive provisions of this Act are punishable by imprisonment from one month to one year and a fine of 250 to 10,000 euros or only one of these penalties.
§ 2. The court may also order the closure of an institution that violates the prohibitive provisions of this Act.
The provisions of Book I of the Penal Code, including Chapter VII and Article 85, apply to the offences provided for in this Act.
§ 3. The officers commissioned for this purpose by the Minister may, in the light of the minutes that find a violation of the prohibitive provisions of this Act, established by the agents referred to in section 19, § 1^er, propose to the offenders the payment of a sum that extinguishes public action.
The rates as well as the payment and collection modalities are fixed by the King.
§ 4. The Public Prosecutor ' s Office, having taken note of the minutes issued on the basis of Article 19, § 1^er, paragraph 2, may order the seizure of the products subject to the offence.
The commissioned officers, when they find an offence under the powers conferred on them by section 21, may, as a precautionary measure, proceed with the seizure of the proceeds subject to the offence. This seizure must be confirmed by the Public Prosecution Service within eight days, in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph.
The person in whose hands the products are seized may be incorporated as a judicial guardian.
The seizure is lifted in full right by the judgment ending the prosecution, when this judgment has passed in force of judgment or by the classification without the result of the case or by the payment of the sum referred to in § 3.
The Public Prosecutor's Office may release the seizure that it has ordered or confirmed, if the offender renounces the products under the conditions that have resulted in the prosecution; this waiver does not imply any recognition of the merits of this prosecution.
CHAPTER VII. - Miscellaneous provisions
Art. 23. Royal Decrees under this Act are subject to the advice of the Superior Council of Independents and SMEs.
Art. 24. Are repealed:
1° the law of June 22, 1960 establishing weekly rest in crafts and trade;
2° the law of 24 July 1973 establishing the mandatory closure of evening in trade, crafts and services.
Art. 25. The regulatory provisions, not contrary to this Act, remain in force until they are repealed or replaced by orders made pursuant to this Act.
Art. 26. This Act comes into force on the first day of the third month following the one in which it was published in the Belgian Monitor.
Promulgate this law, order that it be clothed with the seal of the State and published by the Belgian Monitor.
Given in Brussels on 10 November 2006.
ALBERT
By the King:
Minister of Average Class,
Mrs. S. LARUELLE
Seal of the state seal:
The Minister of Justice,
Ms. L. ONKELINX
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Note
(1) Session 2005-2006.
House of Representatives.
Documents. - Bill, 51-2486 - No. 1. - Amendments, 51-2486 - N^bones 2 to 4. - Report, 51-2486 - No. 5. - Amendments, 51-2486 - No. 6. - Text adopted in plenary and transmitted to the Senate, 51-2486 - No. 7.
Full report. - 6 July 2006.
Session 2006-2007.
Senate.
Documents. - Project not referred to by the Senate, 3-1801, No. 1.