The Tel Aviv city council has published an invitation for supermarket and store owners who wish to be open on Shabbos to submit a formal request to obtain permits from the city to remain open.

Request can be submitted beginning on January 1st and with a final date of February 1st of the coming calendar year. The application will be able to be submitted online from the city’s website. Any legally operated store whose area does not go over 500 square meters may submit the request.

The city will take all the requests and divide up the available 164 permits among stores spread across the city. The permits will be given for two years and will be personalized and non-transferable.

Should the city receive more requests than they have permits for in a particular area, then the requests will be put into a lottery based on size and region, thus there will be fair availability between kiosks and smaller stores that will allow for varied services being available to the Shabbos consumer.

The limit of the permits is to prevent a gross overuse of the law allowing stores to be open on Shabbos while still allowing residents who do not observe Shabbos to have the services that they desire.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)