Drinking in Lynn

The mayor is heading down the wrong path suggesting that Lynn’s bars should be open for business after 1:00 am in the morning.

Serving as a mouthpiece for the city’s bar owners is one thing.

Being the mayor of this city is another.

Since the rollback, Lynn is a better and safer place.

The police chief says so, and so too do police chiefs all around us where hours have been rolled back.

Only in Saugus have the hearts and minds of that town’s governing board of selectmen been rendered ineffectual.

Saugus has the 2:00 am closing time, making parts of Route 1 at that hour of the early morning one of the most dangerous highways in the state.

No one needs to be drinking in a bar or restaurant between the hours of 1:00 and 2:00 am in the morning in Lynn.

Those who want to be drinking at that ungodly hour in any of this city’s bars and restaurants seem to have the support of the mayor, although the mayor is attempting to repay election promises by returning to bar owners the hour that was taken away more than anything else.

She knows this city is a better place without the 2:00 am closing.

That is what hurts.

Drinking and drunk driving are primary dangers that go hand in hand.

The type of people out drinking at 2:00 am in local bars are the type of people who are drunk at that hour of the day.

I know.

I was a bar owner for 11 years.

Last call to drinkers is like last call for the folks smoking crack pipes.

It is one more chance to have a few more drinks to fully obliterate the evening.

When everyone is let out of the bars at 2:00 am or later, how many walking out or staggering home, or getting into the their automobiles to drive on our city’s streets are drunk?

Near;y everyone would be my honest estimate.

The only reason you’re out drinking at a local bar at 2:00 am is because you don’t want to go home and because you want to be drunk.

You want to escape the reality of your existence so you drink as much alcohol as you can to get there.

I have no battle going on with the mayor.

She’s OK by me. In some ways, she’s very, very cool and unconcerned about things.

On the issue of giving back an hour to bar owners, she is all wrong and I suspect she knows that. I suspect she knows that because she’s very, very smart.

I always wonder how people who are so smart can make decisions that are so wrong.

The 2:00 am closing time here is all about politics.

And its all wrong.