The Saratoga Springs City Council is asking the County Board of Supervisors to request the State Liquor Authority roll back the operating hours of bars and restaurants from 4 a.m. to 2 a.m.
During a summer season that has brought an influx of eager visitors and a thronged downtown bar scene, Saratoga Springs has also experienced late-night violence and drug and weapons arrests at a level that wasn’t seen during a quieter 2020 summer caused by the pandemic.
Tuesday night, Mayor Meg Kelly brought a visual aid to support her argument for moving back closing time from 4 a.m. to 2 a.m.
“This is a stack of fake IDs just to show the public, that was taken from one bar in one night and there’s 52.”
The city cannot restrict the sales of alcohol sales on its own. Kelly, an outgoing Democrat, introduced a resolution to the city council.
“I move that the city council request Saratoga County Board of Supervisors to enact the resolution for submittal to the State Liquor Authority under Section 17-11 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law to further prohibit sales of alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption to the hours from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sunday and from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. on any other day.”
The motion was seconded by Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton.
“I know that there are concerns about the businesses that might be affected and I think it’s important for us to work with the businesses that might be affected to offset any financial loss or perception of financial loss they might have,” said Dalton. “But I appreciate the mayor putting this on her agenda, and I appreciate the council’s hopefully support on this because we cannot let this public safety threat go on.”
Dalton, who is running an independent campaign for mayor, said she worries about the safety of visitors and city police between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.
The motion passed.
It’s not the first time the subject of rolling back last call has come up in council chambers. WAMC reported on an effort as recent as 2015, when a proposal was considered to declare parts of downtown Saratoga Springs a “nightclub district,” allowing the 4 a.m. last call there, but switching to 2 a.m. outside the boundary.
In 2012, the city council unsuccessfully asked the county board to consider a 3 a.m. closing time. And in 2010, a proposal from Commissioner of Accounts John Franck would have moved closing time to 2 a.m. during the city’s “offseason.”
Addressing the latest effort to move up closing time, Saratoga Springs County Supervisor Tara Gaston, a Democrat who attends city council meetings along with her Republican colleague Matthew Veitch, wished the idea had been discussed with the supervisors prior to Tuesday night.
“It’s obviously a lengthy process, so if the concern is public safety issues right now, this is not going to solve that.”
Gaston said she’d like any consideration at the county level to involve the public, bar and restaurant owners, and law enforcement.
Veitch said in past go-arounds he was not in favor of changing the hours, but said now he was not ready to fully discount the idea, and wants to “see the process play out.”
“I don’t think this has been really discussed for some time, so I don’t really have the same kind of sense of ‘this is the way I should go based on my community’ right? Instead of having that feeling. So as of right now I’m not sure where I would go on this, but I kind of still have some of the same feelings I had from before, where I was more open to just keeping the bars open at 4 o’clock and not making the change,” said Veitch.
Republican Board of Supervisors Chair Todd Kusnierz, who also serves as Moreau Town Supervisor, envisioned some possible resistance from other communities.
“We have some northern towns that rely heavily on tourism year round to fund their local economy exclusively almost, and we are sensitive to anything that would negatively impact those types of communities. So we’re going to take a look at it. Not sure where the committee will go with it, but obviously we will bring it to the full board if that’s what the committee process dictates,” said Kusnierz.
