Many State Street bars will maintain close-to-normal bar times this Halloween with last call at 2 a.m. and doors closing at 2:30 a.m., despite city pressure to close early. Some will also open their back-door exits to help ease bar-time congestion.
At 2 a.m. on the Sunday of Halloween weekend, the clocks will roll back to 1 a.m., giving bar-goers another hour and a half to drink before they must leave.
State Street Brats, 603 State Street, is the bar nearest to Frances street, where police plan to put up a fence Halloween weekend. According to manager Jason Sisk, they will try a new back-door policy to help reduce the flow of traffic onto State Street at their 2:30 a.m. bar time.
'I think it's going to be interesting not allowing people back on State Street this year,' Sisk said, 'That will help because people will have to go all the way down Lake Street or all the way down Gorham [Street] to get back around to State Street.'
Dean Hetue, owner of The Plaza Tavern, 319 N. Henry Street, said making bars close early is the worst thing the city could do and would make normal bar-goers angry. The Plaza will also maintain normal bartime.
Sisk said he shares police concerns about the riots at bartime on Halloween and that State Street Brats will do whatever it can to help, but said police unfairly blame bars for the problem.
'There are a number of factors that go into it,' Sisk said. 'As far as problems inside our bar, we have not had any on Halloween weekend. We have not had any major fights. People here have a good time ?? then they leave.'
And in 25 years of owning The Plaza Tavern, Hetue also said his bar never had issues on Halloween.
Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said bars are correct that many factors contribute to the Halloween problem, though they do 'keep the event rolling' toward the end of the night, adding to the trouble.
But Wray also said he would be open to a no-bartime policy in the future.
'To be perfectly honest, I would like to see the city or the state be able to experiment with something like [a no bartime policy], period,' Wray added, 'because if you talk to a beat officer out there, a lot of things that happen on Halloween can happen on any given Friday or Saturday.'
Hetue said a no-bartime policy would be 'fantastic,' allowing people to leave when ready and not agitating them by forcing them out the door at a certain time.
He added the city should 'embrace Halloween' and be 'proactive instead of reactive' to deal with problems this holiday.
