City Hall
McGinn: Bars that "Have Their Act Together" Could Stay Open Up to 24 Hours
At a press conference at City Hall this morning, Mayor Mike McGinn, city council public safety committee chair Tim Burgess, city attorney Pete Holmes, and representatives from the Seattle Police Department expressed support for a McGinn proposal to petition the state liquor control board to allow bars to stay open past 2 am. (Technically, the city would petition the board to change liquor rules to allow individual bars within a city to apply for licenses to stay open later).
Or, as McGinn put it, "First, we want to have the framework for the Liquor Control Board to grant the locality of the city the opportunity to apply for [late-night] status. Once we get the status, individual nightclubs would have the right to apply" to stay open longer hours.
Besides bringing in additional tax revenues (about $3 million a year) and promoting nightlife, the proposal is aimed at improving public safety by avoiding the 2am public-safety (and taxi) crush that happens when thousands of drunk people all leave the city's bars at the same time.
The new system, if it is eventually approved by the liquor board (a big if, given McGinn's shaky relationship with the state), wouldn't technically involve "staggered" bar closing hours, as McGinn and others have proposed in the past. Instead, bars that qualify---those that, in McGinn's words, "have their act together"---would be allowed to stay open between the hours of 2 and 6 am, when bars are currently required to close. Some bars could choose to stay open 24 hours. The board has until the end of the year to deliberate and hold public meetings on the proposal
McGinn says his staff have talked about the proposal with the liquor board, and "their main message was that we have to have a deliberative process and address the concerns that come out of that."
I have a call out to the liquor board's three members to see what they think of today's announcement.
The council's regional development and sustainability committee and public safety committee will meet jointly to discuss, and possibly vote on, the proposal at 2:00 on July 19.
Or, as McGinn put it, "First, we want to have the framework for the Liquor Control Board to grant the locality of the city the opportunity to apply for [late-night] status. Once we get the status, individual nightclubs would have the right to apply" to stay open longer hours.
Besides bringing in additional tax revenues (about $3 million a year) and promoting nightlife, the proposal is aimed at improving public safety by avoiding the 2am public-safety (and taxi) crush that happens when thousands of drunk people all leave the city's bars at the same time.
The new system, if it is eventually approved by the liquor board (a big if, given McGinn's shaky relationship with the state), wouldn't technically involve "staggered" bar closing hours, as McGinn and others have proposed in the past. Instead, bars that qualify---those that, in McGinn's words, "have their act together"---would be allowed to stay open between the hours of 2 and 6 am, when bars are currently required to close. Some bars could choose to stay open 24 hours. The board has until the end of the year to deliberate and hold public meetings on the proposal
McGinn says his staff have talked about the proposal with the liquor board, and "their main message was that we have to have a deliberative process and address the concerns that come out of that."
I have a call out to the liquor board's three members to see what they think of today's announcement.
The council's regional development and sustainability committee and public safety committee will meet jointly to discuss, and possibly vote on, the proposal at 2:00 on July 19.
