Tallahassee reconsidering change to bar hours yet again

It’s deja booze all over again.

The sequel to the epic bar wars over closing time that erupted more than two years ago is coming back to a City Commission near you.

The city staff charged with writing a new ordinance reflecting the commission’s order to rollback the closing time for local watering holes from 4 a.m. to 3 a.m. never did. As far as anyone in the industry is concerned closing time is still 4 a.m., and last call for alcohol is 2 a.m.

“Most bars close at 2 anyways,” said Dan Gilbertson, who owns the student-friendly bar Potbelly’s on College Avenue and is former chairman of Tallahassee Concerned Vendors, a group formed to lobby the city over the shifting hours.

“Just Bajas stays open later that I know of,” Gilbertson said in a text message to the Democrat. “No reason to if you can’t sell alcohol. I guess if people want to pay to dance or see a show.”

A Florida State University official brought the ordinance oversight to City Commissioner Gil Ziffer’s attention just before the summer break, and he asked City Attorney Cassandra Jackson to look into it and bring the ordinance to the commission Wednesday.

“We voted on this. We did this,” Ziffer said, but it is a mystery to him why it was never brought back to the commission for a vote. “You’d have to ask Cassandra.”

Jackson said the only reason she could think of for the two-year delay in bringing it back to the commission is that “there has been a sense of wanting good information in the community, of what effect changing the closing time would have in the community.”

A Tallahassee Police Department analysis conducted a year ago July showed a dramatic reduction in calls for service before and after the ordinance took effect — from 179 to 123.

A public hearing on the ordinance has been scheduled for Oct. 17.

Ziffer said he plans to ask for a 2:30 a.m. closing time instead of 3 a.m., which would make the two universities happy but probably irk some bar owners.

“You can’t buy alcohol after 2 a.m., anyway, so what are you doing? Go home,” Ziffer said.

Here's the backstory

The closing time issue had been an in-house industry food fight for years. All clubs must stop serving alcohol at 2 a.m. and lock doors at 2:30 a.m., but some clubs had a special restaurant license that allowed them to stay open until 4 a.m. 

Scott Carswell, owner of The Moon, complained that it wasn’t fair.

"If you let that go on, you're just asking for alcohol sales violations, because nobody's going to stay in the building unless they can buy alcohol," he said. "I can't compete with a person who doesn't buy a bar license that's selling alcohol until 3 a.m."

He wanted the commission to make all clubs conform to the 2:30 a.m. closing time. 

Instead, in January 2016, the commission voted 3-2 — with Ziffer and Commissioner Scott Maddox casting the ‘no’ votes — to allow all clubs serving alcohol to stay open until 4 a.m. But they also said no consumption could occur after 2 a.m.

The ordinance also deleted the exemption previously afforded to alcoholic beverage establishments that held special restaurant licenses.

Six months later, Commissioner Nancy Miller asked to bring back the ordinance for further discussion at its June 22, 2016, meeting after hearing booze was being sold after 2 a.m. She even recruited a group of young people to hit the bars and see if any were selling alcohol after hours. They were.

“I don’t have the confidence that it’s still OK to let the clubs and the bars stay open until 4 o’clock under the promise that they’re no longer serving alcohol after 2 a.m.,” Miller said at the time. 

The commission also received a letter from Florida State University, Florida A&M University and Tallahassee Community College supporting a citywide closing time no later than 2:30 a.m. for all venues that serve alcohol.
 
After a 40-minute discussion, the commission unanimously ordered staff to draft an ordinance that changed closing times of all watering holes to 3 a.m., required beverage service and consumption to stop at 2 a.m. and raised the fines for owners who violate the ordinance from $500 to $1,000.

Ziffer said the police had better things to do than arrest bar owners for serving booze after hours. TPD numbers showed that calls for late night bars dropped after the 4 a.m. rule went into effect.

Mayor Andrew Gillum favored going back to the original law because nobody complained until the city started meddling with the closing times. He also moved to add language banning consumption past 2 a.m, along with harsher penalties.

The aftermath?

Days after the commission voted, Gilbertson sent an email saying the commission’s efforts were wrongly perceived by the media and that vendors had no interest in extending hours for selling alcohol. 

“The control currently on these businesses is in the hours of operation tied to the type alcohol licenses they have,” he said. “The complication and very misunderstood part of this is by limiting the operating hours based on selling alcohol it would also stop the operation of those places legitimately selling food but also have an alcohol license.”

This, he said, is where the “pizza factor” came in, a reference to statements made by Jeremy Matlow, co-owner of bars and several pizza restaurants. Restaurants benefit from the proposed 3 a.m. cutoff time because they benefit financially from serving food to patrons leaving bars at 2 a.m., Gilbertson said.

Bar owners were opposed to the no consumption past 2 a.m. language. 

“The idea you can sell someone a beer at 1:59 a.m. and force them to drink it before 2 a.m. is unrealistic and not practical,” Gilbertson wrote.

In an opinion piece for the Democrat, Matlow said limiting bar hours would hurt business. 

“This change is unproductive for a city aiming to attract and retain young talent and encourage innovative entrepreneurs. We cannot let one reckless individual’s action essentially put a citywide curfew on Tallahassee.”

Matlow, currently a candidate for the City Commission Seat 3 being vacated by Miller, hasn’t changed his position but was reluctant to weigh in on what he considered a narrow issue. 

“My position never was the bar closure question. I wanted that to remain the same,” Matlow told the Democrat.

The proposed changes, he said, “won’t affect us.”

Contact Schweers at jschweers@tallahassee.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.