Closing Time

Ralph Nader may have recently swung by and accused college students of not doing enough to get actively politically, but a bunch of Stanford students seem to be rising to the challenge. Led by Walter Haas, son of well-known Bay Area philanthropist Walter Haas, the group of Stanford students are rallying for a cause SFist can easily get behind, changing the closing time of bars from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. Haas is trying to rally a bunch of organizations to support him by claiming that letting bars serve drinks past 2 will actually save lives. The idea, of course, being that when the lights come up and you're still doing Jager shots, you don't have to get into a car and drive home. (Not that SFist would know anything about doing Jager shots at 2 in the morning at some bar.) Haas has a bunch of statistics to illustrate the point he's trying to make, but we all know that the main reason to throw around statistics like that is because the surest way of getting people motivated to change something is to tell them that somebody will be saved. It's not like you can build a political movement out of "we wanna party some more." So far, organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving ain't buying Haas's argument.

Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) tried to get similar legislation passed several years ago, with the approval of the Board of Supes, but used an economic argument instead. His idea was that if bars stay open longer, it would create a whole domino effect of economic goodies. After all, if bars stay open later, then more drinks are bought and the more happening things are. The more happening things are, the more people go out, and the more drinks are bought and the more people get greasy post-hangover breakfasts the next morning. And so on and so forth. In other words, it’s all good, especially in that it’ll mean less whining from New Yorkers about how much more exciting New York is because they can stay out till 4. Leno's proposal, however, died in committee as a bunch of organizations, including MADD and several police organizations fought against it.

Both Haas and Leno say they will keep fighting the good fight.