Would 24-hour bars be a good idea in Vancouver?

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Seattle’s mayor wants the liquor board in his city to allow widely-staggered closing times for bars, with some even being allowed to remain open 24-hours a day. The goal is to reduce violence after the bars close by not having all of patrons staggering onto the street at the same time.

Could the idea of 24-hour bars work in Vancouver?

BarWatch, an industry watchdog run by bar owners, says it isn’t the best solution for reducing crowd sizes after closing time:

“I’d much prefer to see our public transportation system run later, which would help to clear the area a lot quicker” says John Teti with BarWatch, who also expresses concern the Seattle idea might increase crowds if it was tried here.

“Clearly, if there’s one incident in a thousand (for example), and all of a sudden you have ‘X’ more thousands of people, it’s just the law of averages. I’m not saying it’s going to create a greater safety risk. I just don’t see it as something that would work well here in the city of Vancouver”.

The Vancouver Police Department says it has already enjoyed some success at reducing violence at closing time.

“Fifteen years ago, there was a lot of alcohol-fuelled violence,” explains Constable Lindsey Houghton. “Then, we started to see a shift in that when we started closing the streets down, making them pedestrian-only on weekends and holidays.”

“We want to examine what other police agencies are doing, both in Canada and the United States, and around the world, to see if we can translate some of those potential best practice into our policing here.”