The Washington State Liquor Control Board denied a request last week submitted by the City of Seattle, which was asking for the right to petition the state to let bars serve alcohol past 2 a.m. But the rebuke from the three-member panel didn't come as a surprise.

As with nearly every decision made by the prohibition-humping liquor board, their reasoning was another knee-jerk response to fears about alcohol. This is the same board that staunchly opposed liquor privatization and still mandates that beer-drinking festivalgoers be baby-gated off from nondrinkers, as if alcohol was as potent and deadly as Ebola.

"Our paramount responsibility is public safety, and I believe control plays a major part of public safety," board member Sharon Foster said in a statement explaining her May 30 "no" vote.

"Seattle is not an island," added fellow board member Ruthann Kurose, who expressed concern that later bar hours in one city could increase drunk driving incidents in outlying suburbs (but she cited no data to back up her assertion). Again and again, Foster and Kurose dwelled on the risks of allowing Seattle, specifically, to enact later bar hours.

Sitting in the audience during the meeting, Dave Meinert, a nightlife advocate and Seattle bar owner, grew increasingly frustrated by the lack of evidence board members used to justify their positions. "They've gone backward in public policy to where preventionism is a solution," Meinert said. As he described it, the liquor board wants blanket rules across the state, even if actual data show blanket rules may not work for every city.

Fellow board member Chris Marr was the only "yes" vote on the three-person panel. "We are not the Liquor Prevention Board," he reminded his colleagues. "We are the Liquor Control Board." As Marr pointed out, state voters decided last fall to shutter state-run liquor stores and open retail sales to private grocers, and, as such, it is time for the board to acknowledge that controlling alcohol sales doesn't require placing cumbersome restrictions on when and where adults can buy spirits.

Fortunately, the City of Seattle can appeal the board's decision—and it might. Mayor Mike McGinn has said he's considering the idea, and Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess says he "would welcome a re-petition."

Why challenge a board that has already made up its mind?

To begin with, the board was wrong on several points.

Despite several statements from board members, Seattle's proposal wasn't about scoring our city later bar hours. It was asking the state to set the necessary guidelines so that any city could petition the state for extended hours (if they so chose). Getting the board's approval in this first step would simply set parameters for applying at the second step, not commit the state to any new regulations. By focusing on a specific proposal that didn't exist, the board was jumping the gun and was deliberately misleading.

In justifying her "no" vote, Kurose cited a Vancouver, BC, study showing that violence increased by 138.7 percent after the city extended liquor hours in 2004, adding, "A safe and responsible Nightlife Initiative should not increase this kind of risk to public safety." However, Kurose neglected to mention that in 2008, the Vancouver Police Department partnered with bar owners to quell nightlife violence—something Seattle officers are already doing. The results were swift and effective: Assaults in Vancouver dropped 17 percent in 2008, and state-of-intoxication arrests dropped by 48 percent. In 2009, assaults and intoxication arrests dropped further. Seattle officials can make similar proposals, if the board will let them.

Later bar hours may also be a boon to public safety, not a risk. Seattle police, who support the later hours, say staggering bar closing times would help mitigate the 135-percent spike in violence around 2 a.m., when thousands of drinkers across our city are pushed into the streets simultaneously.

The board was lazy by dodging these facts. Even worse, it was shirking its responsibility.

Kurose said that Seattle should "engage the support of the state legislature," willfully ignoring the fact that the state legislature hired her to make exactly those kinds of decisions (and pays her more than $50,000 a year plus benefits for only part-time work).

City officials shouldn't wait for a lethargic legislature to take action before they file the petition again. They should re-petition, responding directly to the board's preposterous logic. That would put the issue back in their lap and challenge them to defend their decisions. Otherwise, we let these two women, who have no background in the bar or nightlife industry (Kurose also serves on boards for KCTS television and Bellevue Community College; Foster is a retired state lobbyist), unilaterally shut down a thoughtful approach to dealing with public safety in a big city.

The continued pressure might work. After all, Washington was long one of the only states that banned performers from drinking onstage. After years of pressure and a petition from a bowling alley owner in Richland, the board nixed that rule last October.

When the pressure is on, the board can evolve or cave completely on outdated policy. The alternative is tolerating lazy bureaucrats making uninformed, baseless rules at the city's expense.