Walk into the Costco in Teterboro on a Sunday afternoon and you will see something that makes sense only if you already live here. The rotisserie chickens are stacked and moving. The produce aisle is full. But turn toward the clothing racks and you will find them wrapped in plastic or roped off with tape, as if the polo shirts themselves were a crime scene. Target does the same thing a few miles away. Nobody working the register can fully explain it to a confused out-of-towner, but every regular knows the rule without being told: groceries, yes. Clothes, no. Not today.
That contradiction is Bergen County's Sunday in miniature, and this year it is being tested in a courtroom in Hackensack in a way it has not been tested in more than thirty years.
The current version of the rule dates to 1959, when New Jersey let each county vote on whether to keep or drop its Sunday retail ban. All 21 counties held that vote. Eleven repealed on the spot. The other ten, Bergen included, chose to keep it. Over the following quarter century the holdouts peeled off one by one, until by 1985 Bergen was the only county left standing.
A Stricter Rule Inside the Rule
Outside Paramus, compliance has always looked more like a norm than a policed fact. The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack, a luxury retail strip anchored by Tiffany and Louis Vuitton, has operated on Sundays for years without the same scrutiny Paramus applies to its own malls.
The Property Line in East Rutherford
Then there is American Dream, and this is where the story stops being trivia and starts being a live legal fight with an actual timeline.
The case landed in front of Superior Court Judge Gregg Padovano in June 2026, right as MetLife Stadium prepared to host World Cup matches. After a hearing that ran about ninety minutes, Padovano reserved judgment on whether to dismiss the case outright , telling attorneys he would issue an opinion shortly. The World Cup has since come and gone. In the months since that hearing, no ruling has been made public.
Where Bergen County Actually Stands on a Sunday
The Threat Buried in a Legal Brief
Two Votes, One Answer, Getting Stronger
What to Actually Do This Sunday
None of that changes until Padovano rules, and there is no telling yet which way it goes. What is worth watching is not just the outcome, but whether Paramus's own malls follow through on the threat in that March brief. If Garden State Plaza and Bergen Town Center start opening their doors the same Sunday the ruling comes down, that will tell you the county's oldest retail rule finally lost its last defenders.
Understanding a place at this level of detail, not just its price per square foot but the quirks that shape a Tuesday versus a Sunday there, is the kind of groundwork The Luberto Group puts into every conversation about Bergen County living. If you are weighing a move here, or already call one of these towns home and want a second opinion on what is actually happening around you, Contact Us.