4 a.m. last call bill reintroduced
A later last call may be in the cards once again for Palm Springs, Cathedral City, and Coachella.
State Senator Scott Wiener introduced Senate Bill 58 Tuesday, just 2 months after Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the act which would allow for nine California cities to extend last call to 4 a.m.
The following cities would see a change under the bill:
Cathedral City Coachella Palm Springs Los Angeles Long Beach Oakland Sacramento West Hollywood San Francisco
“California’s laws regulating late-night drinking have been on the books since 1913,” Governor Brown wrote in his message accompanying the veto. “I believe we have enough mischief from midnight to 2 without adding two more hours of mayhem.”
Other cities across the U.S already serve alcohol until 4 a.m, including Chicago, where Darryl Ferdinand is visiting from.
“There’s always complaints from the residents that people are urinating on their lawn, there are fights breaking out, people breaking into cars. Staying open until those hours attracts a certain element that you don’t get at 12:00 or 2 am,” said Ferdinand.
But Kipp Lynch says he’s seen both night life’s and doesn’t’t expect major change, if bar’s chose to transition into opening late.
“I’ve lived in Boston which is 2 a.m. I’ve lived in New York which is 4 a.m. I can’t say I saw rowdiness or mayhem or any thing like that. To me, I don’t know if there would be much of a difference,” said Lynch.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener/status/1075038860407726082″,”author_name”:”Scott Wiener”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;As we near Xmas, let’s give the gift of great nightlife. Yesterday, I introduced SB 58, allowing 9 cities to extend nightlife to 4 am. Gov Brown vetoed the same bill this year, saying it’d lead to “mischief & mayhem.” No, it won’t. It’ll lead to great nightlife. We won’t give up.&#lt;/p&#gt;– Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener/status/1075038860407726082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;December 18, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
The question is, will the bill make it back to the governors desk and will C alifornia ‘s next Governor, G avin N ewsom, sign it into law? Some people think it’s likely.
“It sounds like he’s a little bit more forward thinking than the previous governor, so yeah, I’m all for it,” said Todd Dieder, of Seattle.
“He seems, uh, I don’t know if id say business friendly, but I can see him going in that direction,” said Lynch.
Newsom is a part owner of PlumpJack, which in turn owns Melvynn’s Restaurant and Lounge in Palm Springs. Some wonder if it will change the approval process.
“I guess he can’t recuse himself like a judge or anything, so I don’t know what he would do,” Lynch said.
State Senator Wiener wrote in a tweet that “it’s time to move away from CA’s century-old, rigid statewide 2 am closing time.”
The bill’s pilot program could have a start date as early as January 1, 2022, a one-year delay from the proposed date of its earlier iteration, Senate Bill 905.
In July, Palm Springs residents had mixed reactions to the bill.
For Palm Springs, politicians were heartily on board for the earlier measure; the City Council voted unanimously to be a part of a five-year pilot study if it were to get that far.
“If the bill is signed into law, then it will come back to the city. We’ll discuss it in a council meeting, we’ll get public input, we’ll meet with the restaurants and bars and resident groups and business groups to get input,” Palm Springs Council member Geoff Kors said in July. Then we’ll make a decision if we want to do it, and if we do, how we want to implement it,”
You can track the bill’s legislative progress here.
Behind the bill is Senator Wiener (D – 11th District), principal co-author Assemblymember Miguel Santiago (D – 53rd District), co-author Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D – 51st District), and co-author Jay Obernolte (R- 31st District).
Download the KESQ & CBS Local 2 app on iTunes or Google Play for up-to-the-minute breaking news alerts & more
More: I-Team investigations
Find us on Facebook: KESQ News Channel 3 & CBS Local 2
Follow us on Twitter for breaking news updates: @KESQ & @Local2
We’re on Instagram! @KESQ_News_Channel_3 & @CBSLocal2
Noticias en español: Telemundo 15
