NY County Exec Mulling Closing Bars Earlier [POLL]

How late is your favorite watering hole open? Not surprisingly, according to the State Liquor Authority website, there is not too much variation in the hours that bars, restaurants and taverns are legally allowed to sell, and have patrons consume, alcoholic beverages.

For most counties, bars, restaurants and taverns can sell booze between 8 a.m. and 4 a.m. on weekdays and between 10 a.m. and 4 a.m. Sundays.

That certainly pertains to all of Long Island and most of the lower Hudson Valley. The two outliers are Putnam County, which mandates bars close at 3 a.m. every day of the week and Columbia, which says bars can only sell liquor on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. For the other days in Columbia the closing time is 4 a.m.

However, that could change if a proposal by Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy comes to fruition.

At a recent University of Albany forum on underage drinking, he said perhaps his county's bars should close at 2 a.m.

According to reporting by the Albany Times Union, McCoy chalked up his proposal to the number of deaths in the U.S. related to alcohol now exceeding that of opioid use.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism said an estimated 88,000 people — about 62,000 men and 26,000 women — die every year from alcohol-related causes.

That makes it the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S., with tobacco being the first and poor diet and physical inactivity being the second.

There were 70,237 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which added that opioids are the main cause of the overdose fatalities.

McCoy is of the mind that nothing good happens after 2 a.m., but he admitted that he wants to get the surrounding counties on board with the time rollback, so Albany County businesses won't be hurt.

That might be a tough ask, because according to the State Liquor Authority, all six counties that share a border with Albany County are legally allowed to be open until 4 a.m. every day of the week.

In Rensselaer County, Richard Crist, the county's director of operations, told the Times Union that most of the establishments that serve alcohol close well before 4 a.m.

And New York State Restaurant Association President and CEO Melissa Fleischut said, unless there is a statewide shift in hours, businesses will be put into a situation where they are disadvantaged.

So now it's time for you to weigh in. Vote in our unscientific poll and tell us what you think in the comments.