Legal Question in Business Law in California

And this aggrieves you, how? You are going to sue the restaurant to make them stop selling bread on Sunday? Or maybe the supermarket? Maybe you could call the Baked Goods Police.

You won't find any laws on this; it's purely a matter of private contract. Many shopping-center leases give the first tenant in a particular line of business some kind of protection against the landlord renting to anyone else in the same line of business, or selling the same kind of goods. For example, the first frozen yogurt shop or the first shoe repair, will have a promise in their lease that the landlord will not rent to anyone else selling frozen yogurt or repairing shoes.

For some widely-sold products, maybe fast food hamburger places, the leases would not be so restrictive; Burger King and McDonalds are big enough to coexist without putting each other out of business.

The only way to tell if there is a prohibition against the restaurant selling bread, it would be necessary to ask the landlord if the bakery's lease precludes this. If it does, that's legal. In that case, I would suggest that if the restaurant wants to sell bread on Sunday morning, the owners of the two businesses should work out a deal. Maybe the restaurant could agree to carry bread from the bakery as well as its own bread in exchange for the right to sell bread at all.

Courts have OK'd clauses of this kind as not illegal restraints on competition, because there are so many shopping centers and the restraint is very localized in effect.

If the lease agreements of the tenants say no, then no Otherwise, yes.