The state liquor control board, which is currently working on a new liquor license for nightclubs, is open to the idea of extending or staggering closing hours for bars in cities, according to Rick Garza, the board's deputy administrative director. "We're willing to continue the discussion" about later closing hours "so that you don't have that rush at 2:00 a.m. of people all leaving at the same time" and fighting, piling into cars, or bickering over scarce taxis, Garza says. However, Garza adds, because the liquor board is preoccupied with fine-tuning its nightclub license (out: a provision that would ban all-ages shows; still in: provisions allowing the board to deny a license if it determines there are already "adequate" nightclubs in an area), it probably won't happen this legislative session.
Bar owners generally support later closing hours, for obvious reasons: The longer people drink, the more bar owners make. Perhaps more to the point, people aren't going out until 11:00 p.m. or midnight, local bar owners say, putting "pressure on bars to make our numbers and pressure on [drinkers] to knock 'em back," Red Door owner Pete Hanning says. "I have lots of customers who don't come to my place until 11:30 at night, and I'm their first stop." Longer licensing hours would acknowledge the reality that people don't go out at 9:00 p.m. and head home at midnight anymore. The change would acknowledge that Seattle is a big city—like New York City, Atlanta, Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Dallas, Indianapolis, Honolulu, Memphis, Nashville, London, and Washington, D.C., which all are allowed to set closing hours past 2:00 a.m.
Longer drinking hours also could keep people from slamming back drinks to beat last call, keeping very drunk closing-hour patrons off the street (and out of their cars). As Showbox co-owner Jeff Steichen points out, when people don't go out until 11:30 at night, they only have two hours to drink before last call at 1:30 in the morning. "It's a really short time for everyone to drink," Steichen says. That doesn't keep people from drinking; it just forces them to do it very quickly.
But won't allowing longer drinking hours just lead to more drunken driving and fights? Counterintuitive as it may seem, numerous studies have shown that later closing hours actually reduce drunken-driving accidents and assaults, because people don't feel compelled to slam back drink after drink right up until closing time. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study in 2001, later closing times correlated directly with lower alcohol-related traffic deaths.
Having more people on the streets for longer periods could also make people feel safer, especially in the hours between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m., when streets are now empty. Conversely, not everyone would have to leave bars at the same time, which means less annoyance for neighbors of bars and clubs. In Belltown, "it's kind of a mad rush with all the bars letting out all at the same time, and it becomes a problem for the residents," Spitfire co-owner Marcus Charles says. "If you had a natural flow of people leaving throughout the night, I think it would really be better for the neighbors."
Some neighborhood activists, however, aren't wild about the prospect of having even more drunken bar patrons staggering around their neighborhoods at ever later hours. Vafa Ghazi, a member of the Fremont Neighborhood Council who lives near two large Fremont nightclubs, says he's in favor of 24-hour licensing, but not later closing hours. He also "doesn't agree with the premise" that people really want to stay out later. "Closing at 4:00 is just going to shift everything to 4:00," Ghazi says. "That means that instead of [drinkers] waking me up at 2:00 in the morning, they'll wake me up at 4:00 in the morning." 
