The proposed ordinance, introduced by Assemblyman Patrick Flynn, would create a year-long trial program to allow up to 15 approved bars to stay open with the lights up and music down an hour after they can last serve drinks legally -- 2:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and 3 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. The hope is that cabs would have more time to circulate and give more people a ride.
Patrons could continue sipping a single drink -- a 16-ounce beer, 5-ounce glass of wine or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor -- in that time as long as they ordered and received it before the cutoff. One version of the proposal being considered also restricts people from re-entering bars during the hour.
"We know we have this problem with all these folks hitting the streets at once," Flynn said. "The basic idea is to create more of a trickle effect as opposed to a tidal wave effect of people leaving establishments."
But some skeptics say there is scant evidence the proposal as written will reduce crime and that it will likely just push back the rush on after-hours cabs by another hour, since it would effectively allow patrons to drink an extra round while they wait. They say that equates to more money in the pockets of bar owners, some of whom are among the proposal's staunchest supporters.
The idea of a safe hour has been around for years, since state Rep. Anna Fairclough, R-Eagle River, was on the Assembly and proposed a measure that would not have allowed anyone to drink after hours.
"The idea, for me, in support of it wasn't to extend consumption hours. It was to try to get the patrons out of there safely," Fairclough said. With drinks allowed "they're just hanging later and we've got the same thing an hour later. So that doesn't work."
Under Flynn's proposal, a bar that sells alcohol after the cutoff would, in addition to other applicable penalties, be booted from the program for 15 days and have to pay a $1,500 reinstatement fee to get back in. A second violation would result in permanent expulsion.
The Assembly is set to accept public testimony and consider the matter Oct. 27. But at a meeting Wednesday, members of the Anchorage Public Safety Advisory Commission, which planned to make a recommendation, said they didn't have enough information and asked the Assembly to push back its hearing.
"There hasn't been a lot of study about it," said Tony Piper, chairman of the commission. "I would like to see what this is based on, why we're doing this and why we're in such a big rush to do it without having people take a look at it."
SEXUAL ASSAULT REDUCTION
A leading proponent of the proposal is John Pattee, president of the Anchorage Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant and Retailers Association and owner of the Gaslight Lounge and Avenue Bar.
Pattee said bar break has been a long-running problem, with a flood of people spilling out onto the streets at once and far too few taxis to handle them. As a result, drunken people linger outside being loud, getting into fights or shivering because they are dressed for the club, not winter in Alaska.
Impaired women are often targeted for sex assaults, either on the streets or because they get into a car with someone they don't know well or at all to get home on a frigid night, he said.
"I see the predators that come out and pick up these girls," Pattee said. "The taxis just aren't available, so with no other option, they make a bad decision and get a ride from a stranger or an acquaintance that they just met that night. ... But what are their other choices? Right now they have no choice."
Those concerns were real for Fairclough, the former director of Standing Together Against Rape, when she made her proposal five years ago, she said. In fact, they were the driving factor.
"We were having either reported or non-reported disclosures of predators being around at the time that all of the taxis were needed throughout Anchorage," Fairclough said. "Women were being pushed out into the cold, and because of the availability of taxicabs at that particular moment in time in Anchorage, women would get left in the dark outside and start accepting rides from strangers."
André Rosay, director of the Justice Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said the center has never specifically researched whether its data supports the proposition but that statistics indicate a safety hour could help.
For example, 65 percent of victims and 74 percent of suspects had consumed alcohol before assaults from 2001 to 2003, according to UAA numbers. From 2000 to 2003, 53 percent of sexual assaults reported to Anchorage police were reported on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, and 42 percent of sex assaults were reported between midnight and 4 a.m.
"Most of these sexual assaults are not committed by strangers. They're committed by acquaintances," Rosay said. "The cab availability, I think, would probably reduce the number of people who accept rides from strangers, but I'm not sure whether it would have an impact on the number of people who take rides from (acquaintances)."
SAFETY HOUR OR HAPPY HOUR?
The main sticking point for critics is that patrons would be allowed to continue sipping drinks after hours.
Sam O'Connor, a member of the Public Safety Advisory Commission, suggested the proposal was more about bar owners making money than the safety of their customers. The proposal would effectively push back last call for bar owners by about 15 minutes, and for a night club with hundreds of patrons, an extra round of drinks at $5 or more a pop works out to big bucks, he said.
"This safety hour doesn't have anything to do with safety," O'Connor said. "It's not a safety hour if they're allowed to consume alcohol."
Pattee acknowledged night clubs do best late at night as inhibitions fade, but said the proposal has nothing to do with making money. He said even the best of bartenders can only deliver a drink or two a minute, so there is no way a handful of them could serve hundreds in the few extra minutes they would gain.
Pattee said he would not support the ordinance if it didn't allow the last drink to be finished after closing. For one thing, he said, it would be near impossible to collect all the drinks from patrons in a crowded night club, and owners could be cited for failing to do so.
"That's a deal-killer. That's the only way that you'd get the trickle effect," Pattee said. "The DUIs it will prevent, the sexual assaults it will prevent, just the vandalism, the regular assaults it will prevent, the nuisance crimes like peeing in public that it will prevent: All these things far outweigh any possibility of some rogue bar owner serving after hours."
Police say bar break is a problem that needs to be addressed but they have a beef with the proposal allowing after-hours drinking.
"From our perspective, it's largely unenforceable," said Lt. Steven Hebbe, acting captain of patrol. "We would have to have officers undercover, monitoring the service, and that puts us in a lose-lose position with the bar owners. We're not looking for that kind of relationship."
Another issue is that the average person burns off about a drink an hour, so people won't be any less drunk unless they stop drinking altogether, police say. That means problems would probably just get pushed back an hour closer to the morning commute.
"If you get to have that last drink and nurse it down over the hour, you're not going to lower your blood-alcohol level," police Lt. Dave Parker said.
Not all bar owners support the plan. Daniel Zivanich, owner of F Street Station and The Cabin Tavern, said in a written statement to the Assembly he opposed the proposal for several reasons, among them that the problem seems to be too few taxis and that he does not want to "babysit people for an hour."
"If you think customers will not get any more 'service' during the safety hour you are living in la la land," he wrote. "One way or another there will be things (not paid for) available such as flasks, drugs or just good friendly bartenders not ringing up sales."
Paul Nangle, president of the Downtown Community Council, said he favors the proposal. The council has already taken steps like putting lights in alley ways to thwart problems caused by drunks, but still they persist.
At the Spenard Community Council though, chairman Matt Burkholder said he had doubts. The council faced a similar issue recently with the Player's House of Rock, which was allowed to put people out at close then let them back into a "restaurant," where they could not drink, he said. Things still got loud and rowdy late into the night, causing police to step up patrols, he said.
"There's no incentive to leave," Burkholder said. "If this is safety and their big push is safety, then I think they should be willing to give a little too on this and meet us halfway, where they only get an extra half hour and turn the lights on a half hour before closing time is mandatory."
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'Safety hour’ at a glance
• Approved bars could remain open until 3:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and 4 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.
• Bars currently must close at 2:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and 3 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.
• No alcohol would be served after the current close time.
• Customers could finish a 16-ounce beer, 5-ounce glass of wine or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor.
• Up to 15 bars and clubs could apply to participate.
• Any bars caught selling alcohol after the cutoff would be expelled from the program for 15 days and have to pay a $1,500 reinstatement fee.
• A second violation would result in permanent expulsion.
• One version of the proposal restricts people from re-entering bars during the hour.
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