Alyssa Grace didn’t travel all the way from San Antonio to New York City to end her night on Texas time. But when Carousel, a night club in Bushwick, Brooklyn, turned up the lights around 2 a.m. on a recent Sunday, that’s exactly what she did.
“When I come here, I count on a bar being open a little bit later than at home,” said Ms. Grace, 23.
The wall-to-wall dance floor commanded by Nak Im, the D.J. that evening, spilled onto Starr Street out front. Tarek Abdelrahman, a halal food truck cashier, serviced a 15-person line nearby.
“As I’m getting into the groove of things, they’re calling out last call,” Mr. Im said. “I have to crank it up a little earlier.”
Grace Maynard, 22, wasn’t ready to go home, either. She considered how much it would cost to take an Uber to Animal, a queer nightclub in Williamsburg that stays open until 4 a.m. “Is New York becoming Boston?” she said.
Los Angeles, certainly. According to New York State law, bars can serve alcohol until 4 a.m. But some bar owners say closing times have trended earlier in recent years, with lively venues like Carousel, which opened in 2023, shutting down at 2 a.m.
Most operators agree that today’s customers are drinking less than previous generations, and that they’re going out earlier. But the shift to closing times more common in other cities — call them San Bostangeles hours — is about more than changing tastes.
Late-night liquor licenses, once an expectation in nightlife-heavy neighborhoods, have become increasingly difficult to obtain, especially in areas where bars bump up against brownstones. Early birds and night owls have already clashed over outdoor dining programs and summer concerts.
“The 4 a.m., seven-days-a-week license is becoming a rarer commodity,” said Terrence Flynn, a liquor licensing attorney who has represented hundreds of bar owners in New York City since 1985.
Andy Simmons, an owner of Carousel, has operated bars in Bushwick for nearly a decade. In 2015, he opened his first business, Birdy’s, and received a 4 a.m. license without issue.
“That was a different time,” he said. “There were very few bars in the area.”
By the time Mr. Simmons applied for a liquor license for Carousel in 2023, Bushwick had become home to late-night supper clubs and nightclubs with aerialists, several of which stay open until 4 a.m. “It had already hit a critical mass,” he said of the neighborhood.
The local community board, which reviews liquor license applications and issues recommendations to the State Liquor Authority, suggested a 2 a.m. cut off. “Once you have a large concentration of bars, that’s when 2 a.m. starts to happen,” Mr. Simmons said.
Similar curfews have been encouraged in neighborhoods like the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where local community boards are increasingly hesitant to endorse liquor sales after 2 a.m. for first-time bar owners.
“People are watching their community change, and they’re trying to hold onto something,” said Raffaello Van Couten, a bar owner and a member of Brooklyn Community Board 1, which includes Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
There are ways to get a license without a community board recommendation, like appealing directly to the State Liquor Authority, though it can take several months for an application to be considered. In most cases, the quickest route to approval is agreeing to terms — such as earlier closing hours — in exchange for board support.
“We don’t give out 4 a.m. licenses anymore,” Mr. Van Couten said, citing concerns over noise and enforcement. “It’s a very old Polish community, a very old Italian community,” he said, adding, “More bars and restaurants keep coming, and they think that we’re the problem.”
Some operators see 4 a.m. liquor licenses as a business advantage. On the Lower East Side, Michael Cummings, an owner of the cocktail bar Victoria, was granted a 2 a.m. liquor license when he opened in 2022. After a year without issue, the local community board recommended Victoria for a 4 a.m. liquor license. His business grew by nearly 20 percent.
“It’s not that you’re making a ton of money between 3 and 4 a.m.,” he said, “but having the ability to be a spot that people want to go to after an event is huge.”
New York bars must renew their liquor licenses every two years. And while existing 4 a.m. permits are typically re-approved, new applications have become a distinct point of tension.
In 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio formed the Office of Nightlife to address these tensions and “ensure a more vibrant, viable, safe, fair and well managed nightlife environment,” according to its website.
“This is supposed to be the city that never sleeps,” said Ariel Palitz, the office’s founding director. “We are in jeopardy of losing that reputation.”
In 2021, Ms. Palitz, who served in the role until 2023, recommended extending liquor sales to 24 hours in select neighborhoods based on similar policies in Las Vegas, Montreal and Tokyo.
“This is not about throwing better parties,” she said. “This is about a nighttime economy.”
The New York nightlife sector supports nearly 300,000 jobs annually and generates $697 million in annual tax revenue for the city, according to a 2019 report from the Office of Nightlife.
Not every bar benefits from staying open later. On the Lower East Side, Will Wyatt, an owner of Mister Paradise and Pretty Ricky’s, is content closing at 3 a.m.
“There’s no money made, and that’s when everybody is cleaning up puke and broken glasses and serving waters,” Mr. Wyatt said. “You’re not getting a first date coming in at 1:30 in the morning.”
Still, Ms. Palitz believes that a 4 a.m. liquor license “can be the difference between survival and not surviving.” There are ways, she said, for bars to increase the chances of receiving local approval, such as obtaining signatures from community members and opening in a space where a business previously operated until 4 a.m.
Jim Morrison Hevert, an owner of Animal, the queer nightclub, purchased part of the business that previously operated at his address to inherit its 4 a.m. license. “Bars are closing all the time because making it profitable is more and more challenging,” he said. “Those two hours make doing business possible.”
The hours between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. account for around 12 percent of total weekend sales at Animal. “I wouldn’t have agreed to 2 a.m.,” Mr. Hevert said.
Back at Carousel, the Bushwick nightclub, Mr. Simmons has grown accustomed to shoveling customers out at 2 a.m. Contrary to the wisdom of our time, he views his earlier close as a missed opportunity that extends beyond business.
“A lot of great things have happened after 3 a.m.,” he said.
Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.
The post Is New York Becoming the City That Sleeps? appeared first on New York Times.
