Turn Your Back, Gonna Pay

Turn Your Back, Gonna Pay You Back, Last Call - Minnesota bars will be able to stay open until 2AMunder a new agreement among legislators.

The deal will charge bars a fee based on projected sales, which will go toward funding 50 new Highway Patrol officers:

About two-thirds of bars statewide are expected to take advantage of the new closing time, including nearly all of the 2,000 largest ones.

The new bar fees, plus $1 million a year in federal funding, will also finance a small step-up in liquor control, Pawlenty said. He defended the charges as user fees because they will be spent on efforts that relate "very directly to the impact" of more time for drinking.

He also said that a University of Minnesota study of later bar hours in several other states showed mixed results for public safety.

"In my judgment," he said, "this will not make public safety dramatically worse." As a legislator, he had opposed a 2 a.m. close.

Here's the part where it all disconnects for me: if the impetus behind bar closing time laws is neo-temperance moralizing, they should have closed the bars earlier. If the impetus is public safety...

...then what (short of another prohibition) would be more logical than abolishing closing times completely? The most dangerous time to be on the roads is during bar rush, when taverns flush thousands of toxically inebriated drivers out onto the roads. Why not instead let bars stay open all night, to spread the efflux of bombed drivers onto the roads and, above all, not force a mass of drunks out onto the roads simultaneously?

If, on the other hand, the goal is to raise money for the state, in terms of fines - then this law is perfect. Give drunks another hour to get those last two drinks down the hatch, and make the bars (and, indirectly, the drunks themselves) pay for the cops that'll be hauling them into the pokey and on their way toward a multi-thousand-dollar fine?

The later closing time is no biggie to me - I don't think I've closed down a bar more than once or twice in the last ten years, and I usually regretted it the next morning. But I'd love to know the motivation, here...

Posted by Mitch at May 23, 2003 10:40 AM