At a press conference yesterday announcing the launch of 25 officers to patrol the city’s busiest nightlife districts—a major part of Mayor Mike McGinn’s nightlife safety plan—I asked the mayor about another highly popular aspect of his nightlife plan: lobbying the Liquor Control Board to roll back drinking hours in Seattle past 2:00 a.m.
A survey last year found that 80 percent of Seattle residents polled supported the idea. So has the mayor’s office finalized a proposal for the LCB?
“I’m not sure where we’re at,” said McGinn. Granted, he’s got time. Gregoire issued a 2011 moratorium on government rule making, which means the LCB couldn’t tweak the rules for Seattle until 2012 at the earliest. But when pressed for a timeline to present a proposal to the LCB—to get the ball rolling on the most interesting and popular part of his whole nightlife vision—the mayor said, “I’m sure someone in my office has a deadline but I don’t at the moment.”
Le sigh.
Step 1: Take away sidewalk food vendors
Step 2: Extend drinking hours
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
WTF?
Citing to online unscientific polls is complete bullshit.
Extending drinking hours is a good idea though. Should not have limits at all really.
Of course, in order to sell the idea of later closing times to the State one would have to prove the cities ability to control the adverse side effects of nightlife upon crime & neighborhood nuisance first.
And you’d probably need some sort of demonstrable case study you could point legislators to to back up those claims as well. Something like maybe…
Putting extra policing in place in nightlife areas for the summer and having crime rates go down, for instance!
I totally thought the announcement was going to be about later drinking hours but my naivete caused me to forget the two points about the liquor control board and the rule-making moratorium.Of course extending drinking hours wouldn’t cost anyone any money either.
@1: “Step 1: Take away sidewalk food vendors”
What sort of idea is this, and what reality are you living in where it makes sense in the context of safety?
@2, actually the rulemaking moratorium has exceptions like if small businesses are asking for it. Presumably the bars of seattle could ask the Governor to allow the LCB to enter rulemaking to explore later times.
@6: Check a few days back in the Slog. I am not making that part up. Sloggers were (rightfully) pissed.
Extended bus hours > extended drinking hours.
@6: Ah. You were referring to THEIR plan to keep DUIs down by removing street vendors. Gotcha.
Given that McGinn’s office is 99% focused on the tunnel, and McGinn is universally hated in Olympia, probably not a good idea to hold your breath.
“I’m not sure where we’re at,”
That about sums up his entire political career in Seattle. Because Mr McGinn is too busy trying to block the tunnel and the 520 bridge, he doesnt have any time for anything else.
I’m living in Britain (native to Whidbey Island, WA) and I truly believe that the absence of “drinking hours” has led to a lot of the violence, vandalism and severe alcohol abuse that the British euphemistically label “anti-social behavior”. And these problems are huge, here (especially in small towns- I don’t know if they’re significantally lessened in properly policed cities). I just don’t think people need to be drinking until four a.m…. six a.m… so what’s wrong with a two a.m. cut off? I’m not anti-alcohol (I’m drinking a glass- well, a bottle- of wine as I write this), and I’ve definitely been sad at many a last call. But then I go home and have another drink, or more sensibly go home and drink a few glasses of water. I think there are a lot of consequences that could result from extending drinking hours, and I don’t really see the benefits.
@ 13: I think BEING BRITISH has led to a lot of the violence, vandalism and severe alcohol abuse that the British euphemistically label “anti-social behavior”.
Try spending some time in Scotland. They make brits look like nuns in glasgow.
@13 …well, my British husband would agree with you. He thinks they’re just bound to be a war-like people. I think that allowing them to drink until 6 a.m. is still a bad idea. And I don’t think that even the pacifistic Seattleites really NEED to drink until 6 a.m. And I both hope to return to the Seattle area eventually, and to visit Scotland in the meantime… although not so much Glasgow… any suggestions?
Sorry, that was @14. I’m new here.
@13: extended drinking hours are relatively new to England and were put in place in an effort to reduce the amount of crazy binge drinking that was taking place with early closings.
And 14 is correct. Not sure if it’s been published, but was at a conference a few years ago where some researchers were presenting on cultural relationships between alcohol and violence (and domestic violence in particular). The British Isles (and countries culturally linked to them — US and Australia in particular) had some of the highest scores.
@17 It doesn’t appear to have effectively addressed crazy binge drinking, or any of the problems associated with such. I feel it is much harder to go backwards on extending drinking hours than to go forwards (and extend them). If the US is known to have a cultural relationship between drinking and violence, I see still less reason to extend drinking hours, at the very least because it seems much harder to effectively police drunks pouring from bars at every hour of the morning, rather than at the 2 a.m. mark now common. I’d like to know both if there are cities in the US that do have extended hours, and the effects that has had (& I’ll look this up – not asking people to do research for me), and also the reasons people think this is something that should happen in Seattle. (And can I say, I’m really not trying to be antagonistic, I just don’t understand the reasoning behind this, and nothing I’ve seen in Britain makes me think it’s a good idea.)
@17 “I just don’t think people need to be drinking until four a.m…. six a.m… so what’s wrong with a two a.m. cut off?”
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with a 2:00 a.m. cut-off: it means bartenders, waiters, performers, and everyone else who works late can’t drink with anyone else but their co-workers — and usually at home or in cars or some other (illegal) place. And the last-call, 2:00 a.m. cut-off means people pound their last drinks. Now, THAT’s binge drinking.