It will be business as usual this Easter in Tauranga, with Easter Sunday trading banned for the many retail businesses who've complained for years about the law preventing them from cashing in on the holiday trade.

The only shops legally allowed to trade in Tauranga and Mount Maunganui this Easter will be garden centres.

The reason is because the law that allows councils to set Easter trading rules also requires them to consult the public about it. Call for submissions, maybe even hold public hearings, then discuss, deliberate and make a decision.

The change to the Shop Trading Hours Act is dated August 30, just over a month before the local body elections. At the time the previous council was more focused on civic heart discussion.

After the election there was a hiatus of a couple of months with the new council not really getting to work until late December.

'Nowadays if you don't consult properly you are open to challenge,” says Mayor Greg Brownless.

'And then if you do it over Christmas you're told you have done it when everyone's away and can't have a say.”

Greg is personally relaxed about the trading issue, but says it is a government decision that has been passed to councils – at an added cost for ratepayers.

'To me it's a pity that the government just hasn't made a decision one way or the other,” says Greg. 'But no for some reason or other they decided to throw it onto councils, once again.

'Like freedom camping. There's no way to get any money back from that, but we were thrown in the deep end.”

'I'm very relaxed about the idea, but I can't tell you what council is going to do because I can't preempt the consultation process we have been told we have to have.

'I think places like Rotorua, because it's a big, big tourist place they probably have no controversy about it at all. Here, I've heard mixed views, everything from people who don't want a bar of it to business groups that say ‘do it straight away'.

'So we have got to go through this process. I imagine that will be done this year and I imagine it will apply from next Easter.”

Regardless of the outcome Greg won't be shopping at Easter,

'I hardly go shopping anyway, once every couple of weeks. And on a beautiful day the last thing I want to go is go to a shop, or a shopping centre. I want to be outdoors.”

To prepare for Easter 2018, city council staff will be starting to engage with the community on Easter trading topic around Easter this year, when it is in people's minds.

The process will include pre-engagement to get community views, followed by formal consultation if the council subsequently decides to develop an Easter Trading Policy.

The whole process would need to be completed, and the policy adopted, by mid-March next year.