The Vero Beach City Council voted nearly three years ago to extend from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. the hours local bars and restaurants may serve alcohol.
Since then, a 16-year-old bicyclist was killed by a drunk driver who knocked him off the 17th Street Bridge in September 2014, and a 31-year-old bar owner suffered life-threatening injuries when he was shot multiple times last month outside his downtown night spot.
Both incidents occurred only minutes before 2 a.m. Both became major news stories that have prompted some community residents to wonder if the City Council made a mistake.
Headlines, though, can be misleading.
While it’s fair to ask whether Cole Coppola would be alive today – or whether Andy Capak would still be recovering from gunshot wounds – if closing time at local bars hadn’t been pushed back, there’s little evidence to prove the extra hour to imbibe has made Vero Beach noticeably more dangerous.
In fact, statistics for 22 drinking establishments provided by the Vero Beach Police Department show only a nominal increase in calls for service, particularly on the island, since the drinking hours were extended. And those numbers include routine foot and rolling patrols, follow-up checks and interviews, and calls involving non-criminal matters.
There have been only minor increases in bar-related calls that involve reports of disturbances, drunken pedestrians, drunk drivers, hit-and-run incidents, reckless vehicles, vandalism, theft, suspicious persons or vehicles, or any other possible alcohol-connected complaints.
“The last time I talked to the police chief, which was about a month ago, he said the one-hour change has made no significant difference, if any at all,” Vero Beach City Manager Jim O’Connor said. “It really hasn’t been a problem.”
Though DUI arrests by city police have increased between 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. since the alcohol-serving hours were extended in May 2014 – from 21 in the year before the change to 39 and 37 in the two years since then, not all of them can be attributed to the 2 a.m. closing time.
Vero Beach Police Capt. Kevin Martin said some of those DUI arrests were the result of a reallocation of personnel and special-enforcement details.
“Staying open later is certainly a part of it, but we’ve also beefed up our night shift and utilized special-enforcement details, both of which saw immediate results,” Martin said.
Also, Martin said, some of the drivers arrested for DUI might’ve been drinking at a friend’s home or at a party, somewhere other than at a bar.
“Another thing,” he added, “is that the later you go into the night – 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m. – there aren’t as many vehicles on the road, so they tend to stand out more, especially if the driver is impaired.”
Reviewing the police statistics, something else stands out: Two mainland bars were responsible for an overwhelming majority of the calls for service between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., particularly those reporting disturbances.
Since the city’s bar hours were extended, 179 calls prompted police to go to Filthy’s Fine Cocktails & Beer (formerly Filthy McNasty’s) on 16th Street, just east of Old Dixie Highway. Fifty-nine of them were related to disturbances or possible crimes.
Calls for service at Filthy’s jumped from 12 in 2014 – in the seven months after the bar hours were extended – to 45 in 2015, then to a whopping 109 in 2016, when 26 of them were for disturbances or possible crimes.
The 64-call increase was, by far, the largest of any bar in the city, though the call numbers have plummeted through the first four months this year. As of mid-April, there were only 13 calls for service at Filthy’s, including three for disturbances, two for drunk pedestrians, and one each for theft, vandalism and a suspicious person.
Martin said Filthy’s, along with Cunningham’s Pool & Darts, prompted a high number of calls for service before bars were permitted to stay open until 2 a.m.
“There has always been stuff going on after 1 a.m.,” Martin said. “It’s not different stuff, just more of the same. And it’s primarily in the same places. But we’ve been talking to the owners and managers at those bars, and they’re working with us to calm things down.
“If we get a large number of calls, they’ll sometimes hire officers to work their parking lots.”
Cunningham’s numbers since the bar hours were extended actually dropped from 48 in 2015 to 33 in 2016.
As of mid-April, there were only two calls for service there this year – one for a disturbance and the other for a report of someone being “armed and dangerous.”
The next largest numbers of calls for service between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. at mainland bars the past three years were at The Stamp Bar (17), Rosie Malloy’s Pub (13) and The Grove Bar (11).
Of the island establishments, the Riverside Cafe prompted the most calls for service during those hours the past three years. The 60 calls included 15 for disturbances or possible crimes.
The number of calls there doubled from 14 in 2015 to 28 in 2016. Thus far, there have been 18 calls this year.
“I’ve talked to some of the bar owners,” O’Connor said, “and some of them are still closing at 1 o’clock, if not earlier.”
One such bar is Waldo’s, where manager Lee Olsen said he closes at midnight Sunday through Thursday and stay open only until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The only time he stays open until 2 a.m. is New Year’s Eve.
“I talk to other bar owners, and while it’s generating a little extra revenue in some places, I just don’t know what the impact really is,” Olsen said. “If anything, it probably changed some people’s going-out habits.
“Some people who would go out at 9 or 10 p.m. when the bars closed at 1 a.m. are now going out at 10 or 11, because they can stay out until 2 a.m.,” he added. “One of the good things is, by allowing the bars to stay open until 2 a.m., you don’t have people paying their tabs here at 12:45 and racing down to St. Lucie County so they can keep drinking.”
Overall, since the city adopted a 2 a.m. closing time, there have been a total of 510 calls for service between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. at local bars. That includes 215 for disturbances or possible crimes.
Of that total, 374 calls were on the mainland and 136 were on the island.
“A lot of the calls are for the mainland,” Martin said. “We don’t see the same trouble with the same frequency on the island.”
There were 75 more calls for service between 1 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. in the only full calendar year the extended hours have been in effect – from 2015 to 2016 – with an increase of 60 on the mainland and only 15 on the island. But those numbers appear to be decreasing in 2017.”
