Finance Minister Paula Cox is under renewed pressure to allow the Island?s retailers to open for business on Sundays.

The call comes after stores opened on Sundays in the three week run-up to Christmas ? a move hailed by many retailers as a great success.

Yesterday Lawrence Trimingham, chairman of the retail division of the Chamber of Commerce, described the additional shopping days as ?very successful and very well-received by the public?.

?We definitely got a loud and resounding ?let?s keep doing it? signal from our customers,? he said.

Referring to the Island?s grocery stores, which were permitted to open on Sundays several years ago, Mr. Trimingham said: ?We soon started to hear that Sundays were turning into the second busiest day of the week behind Saturday and that?s with only four hours of opening. From a sales per hour point of view it is very promising for our type of retail as well.?

Currently, grocery stores, stores in the Royal Navel Dockyard, hotel shopping malls and the odd souvenir and gift shop are the only ones allowed to observe limited sales hours on Sundays. Generally, all other stores must remain closed on Sundays except in the few weeks leading up to Christmas when they may apply for a permit to open.

Mr. Trimingham said that if the customer demanded Sunday shopping, Bermuda will eventually be forced to follow the trend already common in the US, Canada and Europe.

?Eventually it will happen - it?s just a matter of when,? he said. ?People?s lifestyles have changed and people in the household are working throughout the week so they need more time on the weekend to be able to do things like shopping.

?The tourists have for may years been shocked that we are not open on Sundays but now the locals ? who are increasingly well travelled and are used to stores being open on Sundays when they are overseas ? think ?why aren?t they open here?? It would be nice if they were and maybe we would spend more money here on the Island.?

Although fellow retailer Peter Cooper said he would only open the A.S. Coopers line of shops if he had his staff?s blessing, he also felt that the final decision on Sunday opening should be left with the individual retailer rather than Government.

He said: ?If I had the volunteer of staff to do it I would like to see it happen, but what I would really like to see happen is for Government to let it go and let it lie in the hands of the retailers and not try and control it.?

But he also questioned if Sunday sales were the result of new business or simply switched business that the store would have done on another day.

?I?m not sure that it is really extra business strictly from a local point of view,? Mr. Cooper said adding however that during the summer months, tourists shopping on Sundays could make a difference.

David Hamshere, managing director of TESS Ltd. ? parent company of The English Sports Shop, Marks and Spencer, Aston and Gunn, Cecile?s, Crown Colony Shop and the Levi Shop ? also argued that the volume for Sunday shopping did not exist.

?On a personal level and on the staff level it is not something that we are pushing as a company. However we recognise that, particularly in the month of December, it is going to be a necessity. In the other times of the year we would just be spreading the dollar around. Our take ? instead of being done in our six day a week operation ? we?ll just be throwing in another cost.?

Mrs. Cox will make an announcement on legislation concerning Sunday shopping during the 2005 Budget Session of Parliament.