Most New York counties close bars before 4 a.m., but not in greater Capital Region

CAPITAL REGION — Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim cautiously hopes his namesake county can enact a 2 a.m. last call for the city.

While unusual for much of the greater Capital Region, the 2 a.m. closing time is common in most parts of New York and neighboring states.“The extra two hours from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. really isn’t necessary after four hours of drinking,” said Oswego Mayor William Barlow. “They probably have had enough.”

With some exceptions, 2 a.m. is the last call for bars in Vermont, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. State Liquor Authority (SLA) figures show that 40 of 62 New York counties have closing times before 4 a.m.

Five out of 10 of the highest populated municipalities outside the New York City metropolitan area are located within early-closing counties, including Utica, Rochester and Syracuse.

“Syracuse is a 24-hour community that has multiple users, with everybody from businesses to residents,” said Heather Schroeder, director of economic development at the Downtown Committee of Syracuse. “So 2 a.m. seems to be a good midway point for transitioning out night life so that our residents can also enjoy their spaces.”

Broome County, home of Binghamton, closes its bars at 1 a.m. on weekdays and 3 a.m. on Saturdays. Most counties allow bars and restaurants to sell alcohol as early as 8 a.m.

Essex and Warren counties in 2013 were the most recent counties to set back regular hours with SLA approval. Counties can set specific hours for holidays, namely Christmas, New Years Eve, and, for Washington County as of last year, Good Friday.

Oswego County has occasionally shifted bar hours later in the past for Harborfest, the college town’s premier summer event, according to the mayor.

Barlow said that he hasn’t received any negative feedback regarding the regular hours, given that bar owners are used to the status quo.

That’s not the same for Saratoga Springs, in which the city has four times within the last 10 years asked county leaders to trim bar closing hours following violent incidents associated with the city’s Caroline Street nightlife. The city also has unsuccessfully sought ways to exercise control over the issue.         

Following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, municipalities could control hours with the permission of county Alcoholic Beverage Control boards. Through legislation in 1995, local ABC posts were dissolved and the authority was centralized to the SLA.

“Towns can go dry,” said SLA spokesperson William Crowley. “Like the city of Saratoga [Springs], if they wanted to, they could vote to go dry. That’s in the statute, but they cannot vote to change the hours for restaurants and bars. It has to be countywide.”

Elsewhere, the most recent failed attempt at changing closing time was in Erie County. In 2015, Republican lawmaker Ted Morton attempted to roll back bar hours in an effort to reduce drunken driving and domestic violence. The proposal was shot down by the County Legislature in January 2016.

Eight out of 11 counties in the greater Capital Region have kept their bar hours consistent with the state maximum, 4 a.m. The mandatory hours listed don’t necessarily reflect the actual hours of operation of establishments in the Fulton County area, maintained Sheriff Richard Giardino.

“Even though it’s 4 a.m., many of the bars around here close at 2 a.m. or midnight,” said Giardino. “A lot of places, restaurants and bars, a number of them have gone out of business because of COVID.”

In Giardino’s experience, drivers on the road around 4 a.m. are typically either work commuters or intoxicated. It’s hard to say where many of the drivers come from before they hit the roads drunk, Giardino said.

Counties and states with later bar closing times are known to attract belligerent characters driving from areas with earlier closing times, said Peter Kehoe, executive director of the New York State Sheriffs Association.

“That’s more of a problem in rural counties, I think, because of the distances you have to drive to get to another drink,” Kehoe said.

Some fear that Caroline Street patrons would bring chaos to Rensselaer, Albany and Schenectady counties if Saratoga County considered an earlier closing time.

“Yeah, there’s always gonna be those kinds of situations,” said Kim, the Saratoga Springs mayor seeking to lower last call to 2 a.m. “The question is: ‘Does a 2 o’clock closing first help us regulate a situation that we believe has turned unsafe in some situations and two, if we keep them open until 4, is there that much benefit to our community and those are the questions we’re looking at.”

Last Monday, Saratoga Springs City Council members approved a letter formally seeking the county’s support and assistance is lowering the closing time to 2 a.m. As of Thursday, the letter hadn’t been sent to Saratoga County, according to Kim.

Tyler A. McNeil can be reached at 518-527-7659 or at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @TylerAMcNeil.

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