California

C. Jarrett Dieterle | 8.31.2024 7:00 AM

It's good to be a billionaire. After years of failing to extend the state's "last call" law, it turns out all that was needed to keep the booze flowing past 2 a.m. in California was for the extension to personally and solely benefit one of the richest men in the world.

California currently forbids alcohol from being sold from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., meaning that bars and nightclubs effectively have to close at 2 a.m. State Sen. Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco) has become famous for his relentlessness in running new last-call extension bills—only to be repeatedly rejected. Wiener started pushing for a change in 2016 and even got one of his bills to clear both houses of the state Legislature in 2018, only to see it vetoed by former Gov. Jerry Brown. When Gov. Gavin Newsom—a former co-owner of the Balboa Cafe club in Marina, California—took office, hope sprang up, but as recently as 2022, a narrow bill that would have extended last call only in San Francisco, Palm Springs, and West Hollywood still died in the Legislature.

It turns out that passing a last-call bill is actually........

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