Curbing yobbish behaviour

Yesterday, a commenter on my blog post about the closing of Opulence Ultra Club requested that I weigh in with my thoughts on a later closing hour for bars. The commenter actually provided two links that do a pretty good job of summarizing the arguments pro and con. Generally, supporters of later closing hours (or none at all) think that extended hours would diffuse the "last call" frenzy, whereas opponents think that longer hours simply mean more intoxication and abusive drinking.

I think it's pretty obvious that longer hours means more consumption. You're not going to stay open longer and pay labor if you aren't selling more product. Duh.

Proposals for a later closing hour have been in the Nebraska legislature twice in recent years, and I've been at the General Affairs Committee testifying in opposition. My opposition is based on the dynamics of police work: a later closing hour moves our peak workload period forward, and makes it more difficult for us to get people off duty before the daily cycle starts repeating.

The lull between the end of the nighttime activity and the beginning of the morning rush has gotten shorter and shorter during my career, and a 2:00 or 3:00 AM closing time would mean that we'd have to staff more officers during the time we can now throttle back a little. If you must have more officers on duty at 3:00 AM, you will inevitably have fewer on duty at other peak times during the day.

The theory floated by supporters of extended hours is that bar break would be anti-climatic if the drinking crowd dribbled out over a two hour period, instead of all at once. This theory sounds plausible to the newspaper-reading, politically-active, socially-conscious citizens who arise for their 5:30 AM workout before getting the kids off to day care and to their job by 8:00 AM. The theory, though, is based on the faulty notion that a significant portion of the inebriated nimrods regaling the countryside with the slurred and exaggerated tales of their sexual exploits would leave before the closing hour. Not necessarily the case. A healthy chunk of the bar break drunks are sleeping until mid-afternoon, as they leisurely pursue their degree in General Studies on the six-year plan, make their way to the part-time evening gig in the telemarketing cubicle, and prepare themselves for their next career supersizing your order.

I have talked with fellow police chiefs in other States that have later closing hours. I have visited many other cities with major universities in my role as co-chair of NU Directions. What I see and hear has convinced me that the theory is at odds with the reality. Bar break is still bar break, whether it's 1:00 AM in Lincoln, or 2:30 AM in Madison. If it's an hour later, Beavis has just had another pitcher of beer.

There is a giant naturally-occurring experiment underway right now on this very issue. Until last year, British pubs closed at 11:00 PM. I personally witnessed the last call phenomenon in London, on my only lifetime international trip in 2005, courtesy of the Jill Dando Institute at University College London. The conference committee took me to dinner, and we were eventually evicted by the Italian wait staff, who turned up the lights at 10:45 PM and shot us The Look a few minutes later. It was odd to see the bar break shenanigans so early, but I thanked my hosts for getting me tossed out of a bar for the first time in 35 years. The British drink like fish, and they have huge bladders--there are pubs everywhere, and no toilets anywhere.

With all the same arguments and debates, Parliament decided to drop a mandatory closing time altogether. The time-series opportunity this radical change creates will be fodder for a lot of researchers, and the early returns are beginning to appear in the press and academic journals. The current spin seems to be primarily on the whoops! side.