4 A.M. Bar Bill Keeps Moving Forward As New Report Finds Up to $1 Billion In Costs from Late Last Calls

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Despite passionate opposition and alarming new research, SB 58 (aka the 4 A.M. Bar Bill) continues to make its way through the California legislature, passing the California State Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations (GO) by a narrow vote. The bill seeks to set up an ersatz “pilot program” that would allow 10 cities across California to establish 4 a.m. last call times for bars and nightclubs. Two previous versions of SB 58 stalled out in previous years. Hopes that this year’s Assembly GO would follow their lead have so far proven fruitless.

Assembly GO Committee member Tom Lackey, a former California Highway Patrol Officer, spoke passionately about the concerns law enforcement has with extending last calls. “I have direct knowledge of the tragedy that’s associated when alcohol-impaired driving is coupled with the extreme fatigue that we also see in drivers between 2 and 4 a.m,” Assemblymember Lackey said. “Through this legislation we will extend the hours of most danger and that is terrible, reprehensible, abhorrent, scary, and should be denounced.”

Assemblymember Lackey’s fears were reinforced by a new analysis conducted by the Oakland-based Alcohol Research Group (ARG), and released the day before the vote. The report looked at the potential impact on Los Angeles from extended last call times and found staggering costs associated with the bill. Assuming only 5% of the eligible establishments in Los Angeles opt to stay open to 4 a.m., the projected costs from the additional alcohol sales top $266 million over 5 years. If 20% of the eligible bars opt in, the costs go over $1 billion.

Those are only the estimated costs per drink. The actual harms—what Governor Jerry Brown termed the “mischief and mayhem” when he vetoed a nearly identical bill last year—skyrocket as well. The ARG team found that a 4 a.m. last call, if universally adopted in the city, would result in 18,934 more violent crimes, 2,741 alcohol-related arrests, 3,237 DUIs, 809 motor vehicle crashes, and an astonishing 94,147 ambulance calls.

These figures, staggering as they are, were not enough to sway the committee, which passed the bill by one vote. “SB 58 is nothing more than another greedy grab for more profits by promoting binge drinking in the wee hours of the morning,” said Bruce Lee Livingston, Executive Director/CEO of Alcohol Justice. “Alcohol Justice applauds those committee members who voted ‘no,’ and those who stayed off the bill. We urge the rest of the Assembly to do what the GO committee failed at and stop this dangerous experiment.”

The bill moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee next. Alcohol Justice urges all concerned allies to take action at the link below and tell Appropriations to stop this reckless bill before the harm is on our doorstep.

TAKE ACTION to tell your legislators to stop this bill.

READ MORE about the expected costs of the 4 A.M. Bar Bill.

READ MORE about how the Assembly GO Committee let down California.