Op-Ed
Setting the Bar too Late
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Tequila Sunrise
October 26, 2006 - 12:00amI guess I’ll sacrifice myself. Why not? My staying in this country is not a sure thing anyway. Plus, I like the idea of being a martyr, if it’s all in the name of a noble cause.
And if I must give myself up so that my classmates and those around me may enjoy that one extra hour of indulgence, if I must give myself up so that my friends have those extra shots of that wonderful, wonderful drink known as tequila — then, Sir, I will consider my existence well spent. And regret that I have but one life to give for my drinking establishment.
Thus I will lay forth a compendium of my experiences during that one hour after the bars close — that one hour that, if the students are listened to by our county legislators, will no longer be one that we spend out of bars, but that we spend within their warm, alcoholic embrace.
This may hurt me in the future. There are things about me that I’d rather have people not know. Many demons roam my head and assail my consciousness. But I am going too far. The demons are something I must deal with by myself. Alone. In a desert somewhere. But, like I said, if I am able to get others — and, to be fair, myself — that one incredible extra hour, then I will gladly bare my soul.
So. This is what we (yes, it’s not just me) do in the hour between one and two.
At one o’clock, the bartender announces last call. We rush to finish our drink. With me, this usually involves chugging it, spilling it down my shirt and spilling it down the shirt of the unlucky girl who happens to be talking to me at that precise moment. Then we rush to the bar and get another drink. This is repeated ad nauseam until someone cuts us off or someone’s boyfriend beats me up.
After an indeterminate amount of time that has its length determined largely by the bartenders’ collective tolerance for idiocy, we are ushered out as bouncers try to pick the drinks out of people’s hands as they go out into the street. The removal from the bar is much like I imagine the day after graduation will be, which involves my being bodily dragged out kicking and screaming and leaving fingernail gouges on the floor.
We are thrown outside. There, we join a crowd of people that is more numerous in its sidewalk incarnation than it was inside the actual bar. The crowd is not as packed, but it is definitely more numerous. And we realize, to our horror and glee, that many, if not all, are drunker than us.
We see many buddies. Overjoyed, because we last saw them ten minutes ago inside the bar, and that is suuuuuch a looong time ago, we rush to greet them. Because we all really like each other, we start beating each other up. And by beating each other up, I mean we throw each other into oncoming traffic, only sometimes accidentally.
People just don’t want to go home. It’s too damn early. So everyone leaves Jonny O’s, everyone leaves Rulloff’s, everyone leaves Stella’s, The Palms and Dino’s and congregates on Club Sidewalk. And there, we proceed to schmooze, flirt and hit on each other in the frigid grasp of this northland wind because we are no longer allowed to do so inside. In essence, the bars move out into doorways, sidewalks and even the street, since we are loath to abandon this short period of time in which we can go out.
The only difference is that we do not have a drink in our hands. We wish we did, but we don’t. Otherwise, it’s just like it is inside the bar. We may even be drunker since people, knowing they have a limited amount of time that they have to drink, are drinking more and are drinking faster in order to preserve that high after they must leave the bars but before they want to go home.
And, outside, we do many things that are perhaps not the best of ideas. Besides not spending money, we stand there and yell at others who yell back at us. This obnoxiousness is, of course, not cool, but it is especially not cool when we are outside as opposed to inside, where we bother only the people who live above the bar (and know what they’re getting into anyway when they sign a lease to live above a Collegetown bar). We ask our bros if they want to chill and go hang out. We look for company. We are basically looking for something to do. We passively-aggressively tell the guy with the big house that we could really go for after-hours. We get yelled at by bouncers. We make a lot of noise. We almost get run over. We hit on more girls than is good for us. We give more awkward hugs than is necessary. We stay outside and hang around because, really, it’s lame to go home before two.
And, instead of doing this inside, we do it outside, where we can cause considerably more problems.
But let’s say that closing time was moved back to two o’clock. Wouldn’t what I just described happen then? I used to think so, but after talking to a lot of people, I realized that a vast majority of people not only go home at two, but want to go home at two. We need, after all, to go to class in the morning. And do homework. And go back and get our credit card which we forgot to retrieve from the bar after we left our tab open.
Plus, let the free market do its thing. If the added revenue allows the bars to turn a profit if they are allowed to stay open until two, then that’s good for everyone. If not, then the bars will close early of their own volition. People who live next to bars — in Collegetown, in the Commons, anywhere — know that it will be noisy. This isn’t asking that the bars should stay open until 5 or 6 in the morning. It’s asking for an extra hour — an hour that, for the most part, will be spent making noise indoors, and not outdoors. The noise will be muted. And yes, people will still be out between two and three, but in much smaller, and less noisy, numbers.
My hope is that, after reading this, the powers that be will be moved to extend bar hours, not because we want to drink more (okay, we do want to drink more, but that happens anyway, in the bar or outside of it), but because they will hope to contain people like me in a controlled environment, if only to promote health, safety and public morals.
Carlos Maycotte is The Sun’s Associate Editor. He can be contacted at cam98@cornell.edu. Tequila Sunrise appears Thursdays.