Bar Closing Hours

I attended last night's public meeting, held by the City, to discuss St. John's bar closing hours.

No surprises...the opinions were what I expected. Bar owners wanted no change; Residents wanted an earlier closing time.

I put forward the idea of having different closing times, especially where bars are in close proximity to residential areas. e.g. Water Street

Upon reflection it would appear we are talking about human behaviour. How does one legislate human behaviour?

Closing the bars earlier will probably only bring the problem forward an hour if nothing else is done. The extra policing the RNC had during this past summer appeared to work but obviously this needs to be a continuous commitment from the RNC to be a success story. If there was this commitment from the RNC would there be a need to close earlier?

An obvious impediment is also provincial legislation and the sooner the RNC and government remedy this issue the better.

A rather radical approach would be to have no closing time imposed upon bars. Owners would close when they wanted to and this would alleviate the problem of everyone spilling onto George Street at the same time. There would be a staggered (or is that staggering) exodus and this may in turn alleviate the bravado and misbehaviour that is associated with a "mob mentality".

The purpose of last night's meeting was to provide input to the City as they prepare to submit a paper to the provincial government on the issue. There was a rather small crowd in attendance and this issue obviously affects residents of nearby downtown streets and certain business owners who have tenants above their stores.

It will be interesting to see what the city's recommendations will be.