Ten minutes apart on the same Sunday in Bergen County, two malls handle the same rack of jeans differently. At Westfield Garden State Plaza, clothing sections get cordoned off with caution tape, the way Paramus's ordinance has required for decades. At American Dream, in neighboring East Rutherford, shoppers walk up, try them on, and buy them. Nobody trips an alarm. Nobody gets stopped at the register. The mall's position is that its 3-million-square-foot complex sits on state-owned land and Bergen County's Sunday retail ban simply does not reach it.
That gap between two malls a few miles apart is not a curiosity. It is currently being argued in front of a Superior Court judge, and the outcome touches something more specific than mall economics. It touches how a buyer might evaluate the Sunday quiet of a Paramus street.
The Sunday rules behind Paramus's quiet streets
Bergen County is the only county left in New Jersey enforcing a ban on Sunday sales of clothing, furniture, appliances, and building materials. Every other county was given the option to opt out starting in 1959 and eventually did. Bergen residents were asked twice whether they wanted out, in 1980 and again in 1993, and both times voted to keep the restriction. The 1993 vote was not close: two to one in favor of keeping it.
Paramus goes further than the county baseline. Since 1968 the borough has banned nearly all work on Sundays outside grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies, hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues. This is not an accident of an old-fashioned town clinging to tradition for its own sake. Paramus contains three of Bergen County's largest shopping malls, and Routes 4 and 17 through the borough carry traffic bound for a retail corridor that brings in billions of dollars a year in sales. Left unmanaged six days a week, that traffic does not stay on the highway. It spills into the residential grid behind it, along with the noise and emissions that come with it. The blue law is, in effect, a court-enforceable traffic management system that residents voted for twice, paid for with nothing but an inconvenience on Sundays, and have gotten used to relying on.
That is one factor behind the Sunday quiet of nearby streets. A quiet street a few blocks off Route 17 is not quiet solely because of its lot size or its distance from the highway. Its quiet, at least one day a week, also reflects an ordinance from 1968 sitting on top of a state law that traces back to 1704 and was formally codified in 1798 as part of an "Act to Suppress Vice and Immorality." The quiet is partly legal infrastructure, not just a natural feature.
The lawsuit testing whether that infrastructure holds
In August 2025, Paramus sued American Dream, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, and the borough of East Rutherford, arguing that more than 120 retail tenants inside American Dream have ignored the blue law since at least January 2025. The borough is not asking for money. Rutgers Law School professor Sarah Swan has noted that Paramus wants a court order requiring the mall's stores to close on Sundays, along with a declaration that the ongoing sales constitute a public nuisance.
The case has been moving through Bergen County Superior Court in 2026, and it is not a formality. At a June 2026 hearing, as CoStar reported, attorney Leonard Seaman argued on behalf of Paramus that the law is clear and asked why shoplifting statutes get enforced at American Dream while the blue law does not. American Dream's attorney, Angelo Genova, countered that Paramus has no legal standing to enforce a local ordinance outside its own borders, calling the borough's approach an attempt to act as a "private attorney general" for a law that does not apply there. Genova pushed the logic further, arguing that under Paramus's theory the borough could just as easily sue Wayne over Willowbrook Mall staying open on Sundays, since Willowbrook sits in Passaic County, which has no blue law at all. Judge Gregg Padovano raised a related concern of his own, asking where a borough's standing to sue over conduct in a neighboring town would end. The NJSEA, named as a defendant, has separately moved to dismiss most of the claims, arguing Sunday sales at American Dream have no direct effect on Paramus's own municipal operations. Padovano reserved judgment rather than ruling from the bench.
None of this has been decided. That is the point. A framework that has held for decades is now being tested by American Dream's legal argument that its lease exempts it. As one recent NJ 101.5 radio commentary on the dispute put it, the entire argument for keeping the law has always come down to one idea: "Sunday is the one day Paramus doesn't turn into a parking lot." Whether that idea survives contact with a state-owned parcel is now a legal question, not a civic one.
Garden State Plaza's redevelopment adds housing near the retail corridor
While that case works through the courts, Garden State Plaza is doing something that complicates the picture further. In April 2026 the mall broke ground on a 13-acre redevelopment that will replace parking lot space with 575 apartments, a town park, and a pedestrian walkway connecting the new town center back to the mall itself. Paramus made this possible in 2016 when the borough voted to change its own zoning to allow mixed-use residential along Routes 4 and 17, the two highways that define its retail corridor. The site's history runs from celery farms to a drive-in theater to the mall Westfield acquired in 1986 and that became Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield after a 2018 merger.
At the groundbreaking, Forbes reported that developer representative DiPiazza said the project would keep faith with what the borough values. County Executive James Tedesco, recalling the site's earlier decades, put the tension plainly: "Change sometimes quite frankly is scary, but change becomes progress when we don't lose what we value the most."
The blue law limits Sunday activity in a retail corridor near residential streets. Garden State Plaza's redevelopment adds 575 households within the corridor, alongside existing retail uses.
How the Sunday rules and new development relate to a Paramus offer
Streets in neighborhoods like West Paramus, off Route 17 along roads such as Spring Valley Road and Fairview Avenue, have long marketed a specific kind of quiet as part of their appeal. Sunday quiet in these neighborhoods is shaped in part by the rules governing retail activity in the corridor.
Three things are happening at once right now, and each is relevant context for a buyer considering the area:
- A Superior Court case is actively testing whether Paramus can obtain an order applying the blue law to a shopping complex that claims exemption because it sits on state land. If American Dream wins that argument, there is no clean legal mechanism stopping any large enough development from claiming the same exemption.
- Garden State Plaza is adding 575 residential units and a walkable town center within the retail corridor, alongside existing retail uses. The project is part of the local context for considering traffic and density near the site, regardless of how the lawsuit resolves.
- Neighborhood streets a few blocks removed are also part of the local context for considering how Sunday rules and nearby development relate to the area.
Two questions worth asking before you write an offer
If the blue law gets struck down, does Sunday change on my street? No one can say precisely, but the traffic-overflow logic that got the law passed and kept it in place through two referenda applies just as much to any future retailer claiming the same exemption American Dream is asserting. If that argument holds up in court, it does not stay contained to East Rutherford.
Does a mall-adjacent apartment project affect a home streets away? It may be relevant to local traffic and density. Anyone evaluating a home within a mile or two of Routes 4 and 17 can ask what traffic studies exist for the town center project and how they treat the neighboring residential streets.
Paramus's Sunday quiet is shaped by the rules governing its retail corridor. Those rules are being tested in court as the corridor changes. Both developments are relevant context when evaluating a home in Paramus, beyond what a median price can show.
If you are weighing a move into Paramus, or trying to read what a specific street's quiet is actually worth right now, Christian Di Stasio can walk you through what these two live developments mean for the block you are considering. Schedule a white-glove consultation before you write your offer.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
