Extending Drinking Hours

Posted by Dan Hagan in Featured Articles, News, Party on 01 11th, 2010 | no responses

Why can’t adults drink late on weekends? I imagine that a major consideration is the effect it has on public safety. Allowing adults to drink for a few more hours letting them socialize and spend money on Friday and Saturday mornings wouldn’t be unreasonable. It could ease the binge drinking that comes at last call. Those effects don’t surface until the middle of driving home half an hour later. Most of us have our own cutoff in place but imagine how it would feel to be told you could go to jail for drinking coffee after 6pm?

A Canadian study in Ontario came to this conclusion: “Overall, London and Windsor exhibited significant overall reductions in impaired driving charges and no changes for assault charges aggregated over the 11 p.m.-4 a.m. time period after the drinking hours were extended.”

In Europe it seems as if prohibiting adults from drinking at certain times is becoming a thing of the past. Paris just passed a law that allowed clubs to stay open till 7am and serve till 5:30am.If that isn’t enough of a reason to see how far behind we are in Cascadia, take London England as an Example. The bars are now permitted to stay open 24 hours! London is the Las Vegas of Europe it seems.

It does seem odd that we take for granted that we have to stop drinking at a certain time. An alcohol curfew. Why do we allow ourselves to be treated like kids who don’t know any better? Is it an easy way to show the absolute authority of the state? Now that’s what I call Freedom. As Cascadians we should be leading the country in Progressive ideas. We should be repealing anti-freedom laws that keep us from enjoying ourselves and spending our money, freely.

The cities of Europe are allowing more freedom for their citizens than ever before. Seattle’s new Mayor having openly endorsed it’s Music industry and Portland’s Mayor advocating a Creative Class, Cascadians have a chance to open up simple freedoms and stop this relic of Prohibition that limits drinking and partying. It’s the 21st Century, we have electricity. All the time. Dancing, drinking and eating all equal more money circulating in the economy. More importantly, more money locally.

It’s time to end the remnants of a communist era regulation and move into the future. We shouldn’t accept the limits imposed by people who have no idea of what is really going on.

We want to party. Late.

Why can’t adults drink late on weekends? I imagine that a major consideration is the effect it has on public safety. Allowing adults to drink for a few more hours, letting them socialize and spend money on Friday and Saturday mornings wouldn’t be unreasonable. It could ease the binge drinking that comes at last call. Those over consumption effects don’t surface until the middle of driving home half an hour later. Most of us have our own cutoff in place. Imagine how it would feel to be told you could go to jail for drinking coffee after 6pm?

In Europe it seems as if prohibiting adults from drinking at certain times is becoming a thing of the past. Paris just passed a law that allowed clubs to stay open till 7am and serve till 5:30am. If that isn’t enough of a reason to see how far behind we are in Cascadia, take London, England as another example. The bars are now permitted to stay open 24 hours! London is the Las Vegas of Europe in the lounge department.

It does seem odd that we take for granted that we have to stop drinking at a certain time. An alcohol curfew. Why do we allow ourselves to be treated like kids who don’t know any better? Is it an easy way to show the absolute authority of the state? Now that’s what I callfFreedom. As Cascadians we should be leading the country in progressive ideas. We should be repealing anti-freedom laws that keep us from enjoying ourselves and spending our money, freely.

The cities of Europe are allowing more freedom for their citizens than ever before. Seattle’s new Mayor having openly endorsed it’s music industry and Portland’s Mayor advocating a Creative Class, Cascadians have a chance to open up simple freedoms and stop this relic of Prohibition that limits drinking and partying. It’s the 21st Century, we have electricity. All the time. Dancing, drinking and eating all equal more money circulating in the economy. More importantly, more money locally.

It’s time to end the remnants of a communist era regulation and move into the future. We shouldn’t accept the limits imposed by people who have no idea of what is really going on.

We want to party. Late.