Bars will have more leeway in scheduling happy hours

Pennsylvania bars are being given more flexibility to schedule happy hours under new rules taking effect Thursday.

Gov. Corbett last month signed legislation that still limits drink discounts to 14 hours a week. But bars may now offer them for four hours at a stretch, up from the current two hours. Happy hours still must end by midnight.

Two other facets of the new law, shepherded through the legislature by Rep. John Payne (R., Dauphin), allow airport bars to serve alcohol at 7 a.m. Sundays, four hours earlier, and allow caterers to sell and serve alcohol at events held at venues other than their catering facilities.

In interviews, Payne said he introduced the happy-hour bill because bar owners needed more flexibility to schedule them during slow periods. Happy hours typically are offered in the early evening.

"The increase in the daily amount of happy hours is going to be great for young professionals who work later hours and can't get to the bars right at 5 o'clock," said Adam Schmidt, a publisher of DrinkPhilly.com, a site that documents the specials. "The challenge is going to be for the bar owners to decide which days they want to increase their happy hours, since the weekly amount of hours allowed is still going to stay the same."

"I'm building data about my business and how to work with this," said Joe Varalli, who earlier this year opened Perch Pub in his Upstares at Varalli in Center City.

Varalli, who now offers two-hour happy hours daily, may stretch one day's happy hour to pump business, though it risks affecting another day's receipts.

Barkeeps may consider extending their happy hours into traditionally busier periods because of local competition.

"Whatever helps my restaurant and bar brethren survive in this tough economy is good," said Michael Naessens, who owns Eulogy Belgian Tavern and Beneluxx in Old City.

"We feel any kind of modification of the archaic liquor code is a step forward," Amy Christie, executive director of the Pennsylvania Tavern Association, told the Patriot-News in Harrisburg. She told the newspaper that she envisions establishments increasing happy hours for special occasions such as big hockey or football games.

But in interviews, most bar owners said they believed that the new law was a precursor to stepped-up enforcement of happy hours, a business practice that has grown largely unchecked. Under the new rules, bars also must post happy hours one week in advance.

"One has to ask the question: Why change the archaic, unabided-by system unless there's an ulterior motive?" said Eric Vesotsky, an owner of Mac's Tavern in Old City. "Ninety-nine percent of bar owners currently don't limit themselves to this mandate." He wonders what this "tweak" - as he put it - will accomplish.