Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Spring Ahead, Fall Back


This coming Sunday morning at 2am, most places in the United States will return to Standard Time from Daylight Savings Time. That means clocks are moved back one hour from 2am to 1am. Pleasure Island never took advantage of that phenomenon to keep their clubs open one extra hour. Universal CityWalk doesn't take advantage either. What am I talking about?

Orange County and the incorporated cities within it have a harmonized alcohol-serving deadline of 2am each night. Clubs and bars have a "last call for alcohol" sometime prior, but then quit serving by 2am. Pleasure Island then cleared out their clubs by 1:45am and CityWalk currently is a bit more generous by 5-10 more minutes. But on the "Fall Back" weekend, 2am suddenly becomes 1am and they could stay open. But they don't. Why? The extra revenue generated by another hour of drink sales is far-outweighed by the significant expense of hired security; particularly OCSO deputies at PI and OPD officers at CityWalk.

Such is not the case in downtown Orlando though where on-duty officers patrol the city streets at no extra cost to the clubs. Thus, there will be no "last call" at the first 1:45am. At 2am the clocks move to 1am and the parties continue uninterrupted. They'll quit serving when 2am rolls-around the second time. Also, many downtown venues remain open until 3am anyway with plenty of music. This weekend: the second 3am! Makes for a very fun night!

8 comments:

Brian said...

PI allways closed at 2am and never stayed open later! like I think they should have!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hopefully if the clubs do reopen most partying starts at
9:00pm to 2:00am.
So that's six hours and plenty of time to feel great.
I hope these people realize in two months it's going to bew a new year. "Wake Up Guys"!!! and smell the coffee.
Lets Party!!

Anonymous said...

I hope those people know what they're doing about the Issue of PI.

zulemara said...

actually WAY back when they did hold hard ticket events past normal club hours at Mannequins where the party didn't stop till the sun came up. These were short lived because of drugs and the "rave" crowd it brought, or so I am told

Ken said...

In the mid 1980s, clubs were allowed to open until 3am in the Lake Buena Vista area. I used to go to Laughing Kookaburra club during that time period. I'm not sure when the rules changed from 3am to 2am.

Brian said...

yes they did have "parties" after hours! they would have to close (get everybody out) reopen open till 8 am I went to the first one. never went again!

and yes in the early years Disney had a 3am closing time till 92ish last call was oh about 2:30 am and final last call was 2:55 am
but other than that PI closed at the same time they would not stay open later then 2 am even if the clock was set back to 1am after the County changed the law! on Disney!
I forgot about those old days!

KingBob said...

I believe the city of Eatonville was the last city in Orange County to switch to 2am. Even as recently as 2 years ago one club in that community continued to operate and sell alcohol beyond 2am under some "grandfather" clause they thought they had. I think they ultimately were forced to comply or were shut down, I'm not sure.

Anonymous said...

WE all forgot Disney did not have to close at 2.. that was there chocie they started a leter open as years went on it was to save money the less time people worked the more money they made hahaha,but disney could have stayed open till all the time..Brian you shuld have knowen this hahah