Many towns stick with 1 a.m. close

Although the Lincoln City Council’s vote last week made it the 36th place in Nebraska to allow bars to stay open an extra hour, many cities and counties around the state are sticking to 1 a.m. closings.

A number of places, including Kearney and Scottsbluff, haven’t aired any bar hour proposals. Others, such as Buffalo County and Fremont, held meetings to discuss the issue, but silence said it all.

“I feel I had enough information from the lack of response,” said Horace Dannehl, vice chairman of the Buffalo County Board, after only one person testified against the ordinance to extend hours, and no one spoke in favor of it.

The debate in Fremont stretched out for more than a month, but City Administrator Bob Hartwig said only about seven or eight people spoke over the course of three meetings.

Bar owners sometimes have have been among the naysayers.

“Several of the bar owners came in and actually testified that they thought the time should remain at 1 a.m.,” Hartwig said. “From their viewpoint, extending hours wouldn’t necessarily extend income, people would just stay out later.”

Bars would get an extra hour of drink sales, but it also would mean paying staff for another hour of work.

Alma officials struck a compromise: They retained a 1 a.m. closing time but will consider allowing 2 a.m. closings for special occasions, such as when the bar books entertainment.

Decision-makers around the state also have had to consider the ordinance’s impact on police, fire departments and community health services, said Scottsbluff City Clerk Cindy Dickinson.

Many Nebraska cities and towns haven’t voted on the issue.

One of those is Scottsbluff. As the biggest city in the Panhandle, Scottsbluff’s stand could have a regional impact, so area mayors and city managers got together and agreed to keep the closing time at 1 a.m.

“They’ve all kind of met and visited about it, and they’re all kind of in agreement that they all want to do the same thing,” Dickinson said. “And for now, they don’t want to extend it an extra hour.”

Scottsbluff’s proximity to Wyoming and Colorado, both of which have 2 a.m. closing times, makes its position significant, said Diane Riibe, executive director of Project Extra Mile, a Nebraska coalition that works to prevent underage drinking.

The issue of borders has been a recurring topic in these discussions.

Advocates of the state legislation that as of July 1 gave local governments the option to extend hours said the change would help prevent Nebraskans from driving across the border to another state for another beer.

But now the closing times can vary from town to town — and if people are driving to drink more, that raises further safety concerns, said Riibe, an opponent of the legislation.

“We did not get rid of a border issue, we just created a lot more border issues,” Riibe said. “Quite frankly, the state would have been better off if it had just passed a statewide 2 a.m.” law.

But letting locals decide was the key to getting the ordinance passed at all, said Justin Brady, a lobbyist at Lincoln’s Radcliffe & Associates, a firm that represents liquor wholesalers.

Brady said the legislation was a first step toward joining bordering states, and he expects a re-evaluation in a few years to consider the issue statewide.

Since the Legislature passed the ordinance in early April, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission’s website shows 35 towns and counties that have adopted the extended closing times, plus the recent addition of the Capital City.

Douglas and Sarpy Counties, as well as Omaha, Bellevue, La Vista and Papillion, are among those that have extended closing times.

Grand Island recently received a request to extend hours, and Sept. 14 the City Council will discuss whether to pursue the change, City Clerk RaNae Edwards said.

No one is keeping a record of the places that have voted down extended hours, but they include Buffalo County, Alma, Elm Creek, Beatrice, Chadron and Fremont.

Many city councils report having heard little on the matter from residents.

“To date, none of us has been contacted or approached about it, and we have no intention of bringing it up ourselves unless we are approached,” Kearney Mayor Stan Clouse said.

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