The proposal by State Senator Julian Cyr to revive happy hours — which have been outlawed in Massachusetts since the 1980s — is a terrible idea that will have only one guaranteed consequence: More motorists will be driving under the influence, endangering the lives of everybody who is on the roads across our state.
Proponents of bringing back happy hours make three arguments.
First, they suggest that happy hours will help struggling restaurants.
However, the Massachusetts Restaurant Association (as well as the the Massachusetts Package Stores Association) is opposed to the change, which makes perfect sense. With food at razor-thin margins, the only means by which restaurants can operate profitably is through the sale of alcohol, which generates much-higher profit margins than food.
But restaurateurs know fully well that reinstating happy hours will only result in the proverbial “race to the bottom” that will see restaurants undercut each other on alcohol prices in order to attract customers — and thereby trim their profit margins significantly.
In addition, happy hour promotions will require restaurants to ensure much-stricter policing of their patrons so that they are not being overserved. Why would any reputable restaurateur want that additional burden?
Second, proponents suggest that the widespread availability of ride-share services such as Uber and Lyft, which were not around when happy hours were banned 40 years ago, will mean that intoxicated drivers will not get behind the wheel.
However, this argument does not stand up to the facts. Contrary to the assertions of the pro-happy hour crowd, the introduction of rideshares over the past 15 years has not reduced the incidence of drunk driving. OUI deaths on our state’s roads plunged significantly from the mid-1980s to 2010, but have basically remained the same over the past 15 years despite the availability of ride-share services.
And according to a national survey looking at data in 2023, Massachusetts had the second-highest increase in alcohol-impaired fatalities in the country with a more than a 20% jump over 2022.
Here’s what the Mass.gov website says about drunk driving. “Drunk driving and drugged driving have an enormous impact on road safety in Massachusetts. In 2021, over one-third (34%) of all motor vehicle deaths in Massachusetts involved a drunk driver, which was higher than the national rate of 31%. Of car and truck drivers hospitalized in Massachusetts for crash-related injuries in 2021, over one-third (35%) were identified as being under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the crash. Drivers hospitalized for crash-related injuries who had used alcohol or drugs were 35% more likely to suffer a traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury than drivers who had not used alcohol or drugs.”
Finally, proponents of removing the ban say that it should be left up to each community to decide whether to reinstate happy hours. The “leave it up to local control” argument always sounds good, but in this case it has one fatal (pun intended) flaw: Drunk drivers do not respect city limits — an intoxicated driver who leaves a bar in one community becomes a danger in the next town over. One town’s decision to allow happy hours becomes another community’s drunk-driving problem.
Senator Cyr was not around (he’s 39) when Massachusetts banned happy hours in the aftermath of a high-profile drunk-driving death in the 1980s. Massachusetts also enacted a series of tough measures in the 1980s that increased the penalties for an OUI, and those new laws had a dramatic effect, with OUI deaths plummeting significantly over the next 20 years.
However, despite the new laws, our state still sees far too many tragedies resulting from drunk-driving accidents.
Our state’s restrictions on happy hours have nothing to do with “Puritanism” (as the proponents of restoring happy hours try to suggest). Rather, it’s all about public safety. We would note that the states that allow happy hours, predominantly in the south and west, have the highest rates of drunk-driving fatalities in the country.
In survey after survey for years, citizens have stated that they fear drunk drivers more than anything else on our roadways — and as surely as night follows day, reintroducing happy hours will put more drunk drivers on our roads and lead to more deaths and more serious injuries.
We urge our state legislators to do what’s right for the safety of all our residents and reject any attempt to restore “Happy Hours” to our state.
