There's a buzz around Arizona today that isn't related to the giant cockroaches in our newsroom.
Students are back in Tempe and the party scene is about to get a bigger boost than a reverse happy hour.
Starting tonight, you and the rest of Arizona can enjoy your favorite bar until 2 a.m. after legislation extending the state's last call goes into effect.
It's shocking that a later last call hasn't happened sooner. It's even more shocking what we discovered during our first week back in Arizona while sipping brews with a wary eye on the clock.
Like many of you, we spent our summer out of state and many of us were in cities that had last calls ranging from 2 a.m. until the sun chased the hangovers from our eyes.
What shocked us was that when we were faced with an early last call for the first time in months, we started drinking more than we did in our summer homes. Midnight in Arizona suddenly became a signal for shots and shotgunning.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ancient art of shotgunning, stick around for a while and you'll pick up the technique.
In our summer homes, midnight and even 1 a.m. never seemed like a signal to drink. We didn't drink more this summer with later last calls, even on our first nights out with an extra hour of freedom. And take our word that we love to drink.
It's practically a requirement in journalism.
When we looked at the clock and noticed we still had another hour until last call, we didn't pound our drink and head to the bar for more. Instead, we slowly kept drinking and relished not hearing a bouncer tell us to finish our drinks or leave them behind.
Opponents of a later last call believe that one more hour of drinking will just mean all us drunks will hit the road with an extra three beers in our system.
First of all, three beers in an hour is an insult. We could shotgun that many in five minutes. Don't believe us? We'll see that bet and raise it.
How do we know that we can drink that much in such a short period of time? We've all been stuck at a bar with five minutes until last call and had to attempt the feat.
An extra hour lets people take their time drinking, rather than racing the clock. We found that bars in our summer homes didn't get any wilder than Dos Gringos or Four Peaks.
We handled an extra hour of drinking and Arizona will too.
