Presidents Day 2022: What's Open And What's Closed In Charlotte

CHARLOTTE, NC — Presidents Day 2022 is Monday, and locally there will be closures in the Charlotte area. Some businesses will be open though, as it's a very popular sales day for things like laptops, mattresses, appliances and other goods.

Amidst the glossy ads for sales and closures, there is a reason for the holiday that goes back to the first president of the country.

Presidents Day is a holiday which was established by Congress decades ago to move the celebration of George Washington's birthday to the third Monday in February annually.

The occasion means many local and federal offices are closed, so here's a quick list of what we'll see locally.

Notably, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have the day off except for teachers, which have a work day.

• Mecklenburg County Government offices: Open
• City of Charlotte: Open
• CMS Public schools: Closed except for teachers
• Public library: Open
• Post offices: Closed
• Banks: Closed
• North Carolina courts: Open
• Trash and recycling: Normal collection schedule
• CATS buses: regular schedule

An interesting fact, Presidents Day doesn’t officially include Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on Feb. 12, which was celebrated by a handful of states.

The 16th U.S. president was born in 1809 in LaRue County, Kentucky, though his birth state isn’t one of the five — Lincoln’s adopted state of Illinois plus California, Connecticut, Missouri and New York — that observe his birthday as a holiday.

Technically, though, the holiday observed on the third Monday of February commemorates Washington’s birth on Feb. 22, 1732.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971 doesn’t mention Lincoln’s birthday, or even Presidents Day. Some lawmakers argued during debate that Washington’s birthday should be renamed Presidents Day to include Lincoln, but Congress rejected that.

Before the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971, Washington’s birthday was celebrated on the anniversary of his birth regardless of the day of the week.