Reality Check: Citizens drink more than Tourists

So there I was, watching Hell's Kitchen, amazed at the inability of the contestants to distinguish between Oregano and Basil, and feeling slightly guilty that I can't figure out what the hell is going on with MAST well enough to blog about it, when-- salvation -- a text arrives. Word on the street is that the city council is trying to kill 3am bars. So I go to TKC. Which quickly directs me to the Pitch blog. And details. Ah, sweet details.

"This change should limit 3:00 a.m. closing liquor permits in residential areas and allow them in the areas of the city that are more synonymous with convention and tourism areas."

As Barney Frank would say, what planet are these people living on? This is Kansas City. Not New Orleans. Not Miami. Not Vegas. Not, really, anywhere that hard partying people would associate with a rocking good time. We are so far off the radar of places sophisticated partiers go to have a good time - we have been rejected by the Future Farmers of America. I repeat. We are not sufficiently exciting for the blue jackets.

I didn't realize that 3am licenses were currently predicated on the (theoretical) interest of tourists. I can't remember the last time I was at a bar at 3am. All I know is that we are not a community of mormons, dependent on outsiders to keep our bars in business. And any effort to take away 3am licenses from bars that actually serve the citizenry strikes me as an act against the safety of the public. Much better to have neighborhood bars serving the 3am crowd, so that they're within walking or cheap cab distance from home, than forcing our sizeable contingent of local drinkers to seek solace in tourist areas.