Mayor Walsh to explore extending bar hours to 3:30am (Boston: dorm, neighborhood)

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by TAM88

They're not talking about allowing 3 for 1 Happy Hour deals.

I would actually prefer that to Walsh's proposal (there we really do need to join the rest of the world). Believe it or not, until I moved down south for a year I had never even heard of Happy Hour! It's not only good for business, but it is also very economical to those of us trying to live frugally. I really don't think that encourages binge drinking like a later closing time would.

Just typical Boston elitism...

[edwardsyzzurphands]

Originally Posted by timberline742

Where? And what evidence of this is there? I would like to read it. I'm not saying it isn't the case, but just living in other places with staggered and later bartimes I never noticed it being better. More like a rush out of one bar to head to another open one.

Alcohol-Related Problems Drop with Extended Drinking Hours

Also interesting to read this study from Ontario and how extended serving hours did not result in any increase in motor vehicle fatalities or collisions after the extended hours.

Impact of extended drinking hours in Ontario on motor-vehicle collision and non-motor-vehicle collision injuries

Of course there is also mixed results in other cities as well:

A Tale of Two Cities: The Effect of Extended Drinking Hours in Licensed Establishments on Impaired Driving and Assault Charges

[edwardsyzzurphands]

Originally Posted by 495neighbor

Welcome to Las Vegas. Perhaps people will be sleeping in tunnels, same as there.

Yeah...and London, NYC, Paris, Tokyo, etc.. which have no last call at all. Those are **** holes I assume as well right?

[BitofEndearment]

May the Irish gods bless this man.

[karen_in_nh_2012]

Originally Posted by edwardsyzzurphands

Plus the revenue that these restaurants and bars will bring in from the added hours will do nothing but good for the business owners.

Originally Posted by timberline742

Also, another reason this would bum me out is if it applied to music venues. It is already horrible to have to wait to 12:30 for a headliner to go on. If that was pushed later I'd see even fewer bands.

More money for the business owners and the state, but what about the people who LIVE near those bars? I imagine some of them already have to stay up until 2 a.m. because of the noise, now they'll have to stay up until 3:30 a.m.?

[BitofEndearment]

But seriously...I'm tired of our exclusive, provincial, uptightness sometimes. I can be critical I want, it's my home. Let the bars stay open late, let the public transportation run late, legalize marijuana, end overrestrictive zoning, increase housing development so people can afford to live in the state, stop obsessing over whether Lincoln-Sudbury is actually better than Dover-Sherborn and vice versus. Let mural artists do their work in Quincy and film more movies. Understand that we can do things to make the students "stay" but that we can only do so much, because we can only do so much to control the weather. Let Massachusetts planning catch up with the rest of the nation. We may have a comparatively good public transportation and walkable infrastructure, but that's do to history. Having worked with planners in California heavily, we are so archaic in our contemporary planning practices, superbly autocentric, low density, sprawling mess. I love this state.

[miu]

I'd be fine with keeping last call to 1:30am, but keeping the bars open until 2:30pm offering non-alcoholic drinks and giving the customers more time to wind down. As someone who played in bands back in the 80's and was a pretty active club-goer (the Rat, the Channel, the Middle East, and all the Landsdowne St. clubs), extending the bar hours to 3:30am seems excessive to me... at least for Boston.

In the 80's I did also go down to NYC to party. I went to see the Dead Kennedys at a club that was open until 5am. The DKs switched playing in the headliner last slot with another band so that they could hang out with their fans after their set. And one night, I went to a private gay club called The Saints that was housed in the old Fillimore East theatre. That club was open all night and in the morning offered a free continental breakfast in the lobby for their patrons. But I really don't think that Boston needs bars open as NYC. We are a smaller city and with a much smaller population that has the energy and interest to be out that late drinking and partying. And as others have already mentioned, having the bars open that late will cost our taxpayers more in needing more police patrolling at night. Not only will they still have to be watchful of the usual criminal activities (muggings, burglaries etc...) but now they will have to be watchful for longer of drunks coming out of bars and clubs. I think that many patrons (who have to work the next day) will stick to the same schedule of the 1:30am last calls, but then there will be the second and third waves of those exiting the bars later.

I don't think that the bar and club staff will benefit from the later closings. Many work at these places as a second job. A later closing will mean a longer work day for them or the club owner needing to hire a second shift of workers. And being open later doesn't mean more in tips. Being open longer is mainly going to translate into working longer hours for the same revenue.

Perhaps the bars inside the hotels could be open until 3:30am for their registered guests.

[edwardsyzzurphands]

Just a few points:

1. The proposal is to extend serving hours until 2:30am and bar closings to 3:30am. Do you not think it is more responsible to serve someone their final drink and give them an hour afterwards to wind down before hitting the street? Right now we have a huge rush to the door at the exact same time, literally Ten's of minutes prior to slamming your final drink.

2. I would imagine that the later serving hours will apply to restaurants and bars that are granted special late night permits and be limited to weekends and holidays, similar to the changes in DC and Chicago over the past few years. The permitting process will take into account location and demand. In DC you see places staying open later in Adams-Morgan and U Street, but not Tenleytown and Friendship Heights. So people in West Roxbury and Beacon Hill probably need not worry themselves with this issue.

3. People who choose to live in Urban neighborhoods, accept and EXPECT urban amenities. Along with these Urban amenities you will get some basic urban problems, but you embrace the trade off because you enjoy true city living. Living in the city means staying out later than people in the suburbs if you choose.

4. This new Mayor did not just pull this thought out his ass. As mentioned he is a recovering alcoholic himself and has no interest in this himself. What he is doing is listening to his constituents. He hired a very young, polished, tech savvy chief of staff, along with a relatively young chief of economic development, who is a restaurant and music venue owner himself. This administration has listened to the complaints of the young professional community on the campaign trail and afterwards. Believe me later closing hours is something there is a pent up demand for and he would not be pursuing this issue if there was no interest.

5. If bar owners do not see that there is a demand, they wont apply for a permit and definitely will not stay open later. No one is forcing them to stay open past a certain time.

6. Finally, this notion that only scum bags and low lives stay out that late is a fallacy. There are tons of people who work hard and want to play hard on the weekend. My circle of friends in NYC and London are well educated, 6 figure plus earning, young professional types and trust me alot of them stay out late on a regular basis. I guess the tens of thousands of dollars they pay in taxes each year is not enough to allow them to stay out late and have a drink and a meal once in a while.

[karen_in_nh_2012]

Originally Posted by edwardsyzzurphands

3. People who choose to live in Urban neighborhoods, accept and EXPECT urban amenities. Along with these Urban amenities you will get some basic urban problems, but you embrace the trade off because you enjoy true city living. Living in the city means staying out later than people in the suburbs if you choose.

I don't know if that ^^^ was meant to address my post about noise. If I moved into an area near a bar that closed at 2 a.m., I would absolutely accept that it is likely to be very noisy until a bit past 2 a.m. when everyone has to leave. But to find out that it may now stay noisy until a bit past 3:30 a.m. would be, well, annoying at least -- especially if music can be played until 3:30 a.m. (not sure if that's the case, although a couple of other posters have mentioned late-playing bands).

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012

I don't know if that ^^^ was meant to address my post about noise. If I moved into an area near a bar that closed at 2 a.m., I would absolutely accept that it is likely to be very noisy until a bit past 2 a.m. when everyone has to leave. But to find out that it may now stay noisy until a bit past 3:30 a.m. would be, well, annoying at least -- especially if music can be played until 3:30 a.m. (not sure if that's the case, although a couple of other posters have mentioned late-playing bands).

Meh, I don't know. If I lived by a street with bars and concert clubs, I'm expecting noise. Getting woken up at 2 or 3 doesn't really make a huge difference. I mean, you really thought when you moved there "well, noise at 2 am is all well and good, but 3 am is just ridiculous!" Either way, we're talking the middle of the night.

It's not like a bunch of bars are going to all of a sudden move into the building next to yours. I'd be surprised if the music venues had bands playing late, if not only for the reason that nobody wants to wait around watching a bunch of lame openers from 8 until 1 am to see the band they actually wanted to see. The bands wouldn't want it either. It's best for everyone to have all the bands play as close to each other as possible, so they can share their respective audiences and get more exposure for each other.