Fewer places to be pouring for New Year’s all-nighters
Interest in permits has dropped by 64%
If you’re looking for an all-night place to drink on New Years’s Eve, your choices, at least your legal ones, will be limited this year.
The number of local bars, nightclubs and restaurants seeking the right to keep pouring until 8 a. m. New Year’s Day is down by 64 percent.
The State Liquor Authority released figures Tuesday indicating that 10 bars and restaurants in Erie and Niagara counties applied for special one-day drinking permits, down from 28 last year.
Why the drop? “It’s difficult to say,” said Liquor
Authority spokesman William Crowley. “The cause is difficult to pin down.”
One of the explanations might be economic.
“It really wasn’t beneficial for us,” said Steve McEvoy, general manager of Duo, a downtown Buffalo restaurant and bar. “It honestly didn’t make sense for us.”
Duo paid for the privilege of staying open later last year but found that very few customers stayed past the normal 4 a. m. closing time.
The other and perhaps more widespread explanation is the Liquor Authority’s earlier deadline for permit applications this year.
In the past, the deadline for seeking a special permit was 10 days before an all-night event. The new deadline, adopted in July, is 45 days.
Industry experts say the change might have caught a lot of bar and restaurant owners off guard.
State officials said the earlier deadline gives them more time to evaluate hundreds of applications.
“We have an obligation to help ensure the safety and security of people going out on New Year’s Eve,” Woody Pascal, first deputy director, said in a statement. “This process provides the SLA the time needed to examine every application before issuing an all-night permit.”
When the number of bars and restaurants applying for the one-day permits seemed unusually low earlier this month, the authority issued a statewide warning.
The result was a crush of eleventh-hour applications, especially from owners in New York City and Long Island.
The number of downstate bars and restaurants seeking permits had jumped from 40 Friday to 353 Monday.
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