Spring Ahead, Fall Back!

Tonight (tomorrow 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 many downtown locations. 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! Which is 4am on the old time. So get out there an enjoy the extra time!