Apr 16, 2015 3 min read

As tax bases shrivel and the best and brightest young people decamp to hip and happening urban centers like Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Austin, Texas, officials in many cities – particularly in the Rust Belt – have engaged in soul searching over the last decade or two about how to keep their youth from flying the coop.

In the 2000s, the notion was briefly in vogue that, in order to attract the “creative class,” cities needed to cook up vibrant art and cultural scenes. While cutting-edge galleries, live music venues, shops and other amenities are an undeniable plus for any metropolitan area, a scene that the youthful hip and trendy consider cool usually can’t be concocted as a result of a chamber of commerce initiative. These things tend to emerge organically.

And, of course, there have to be good-paying jobs if you want people to patronize the folk-art emporiums or vinyl record shops.

Now, not to be outdone by the apostles of the “creative class,” state Rep. Jordan Harris, a Democrat from the Philadelphia area, has come up with a less-nuanced, more forthright idea to retain young people: Keep the bars open until 4 a.m.

Well, some of the bars, anyway.

Harris said this week he would soon be introducing legislation that would allow bars in select areas of some cities to stay open until 4 a.m. In a move that seems almost exclusively aimed at the Philadelphia market, Harris said it would put the City of Brotherly Love on the same footing as New York City or Washington, D.C., which keep bars open until 4 a.m. In contrast, Philly is trapped in the same Nowheresville muck as Baltimore, which – whip out the violins – also closes its drinking establishments at 2 a.m.

“This legislation would create a more attractive Pennsylvania and further a goal of appealing to young professionals and millennials who can greatly improve our local economies,” Harris proclaimed.

Count us among the skeptical. We have a tough time imaging that some freshly minted graduate, bursting at the seams with energy and ambition, would be persuaded to stay in Pennsylvania – or anywhere else, for that matter – by the prospect of being able to linger on a bar stool for a couple of extra hours. Besides, the best and the brightest probably didn’t get that way by hanging out in bars until 4 a.m. and staggering home as the sun creeps over the horizon.

Making such a change probably would also be meet with vehement jeers by the residents of Pittsburgh’s South Side, who have felt increasingly besieged in recent years as the bar and club scene has become more and more densely concentrated along Carson Street. Trying to navigate down that boulevard on a Friday or Saturday night feels like spring break in Florida. Keeping the bars open longer would surely mean more disruption, more arrests, more pizza crusts, fast-food wrappers, bottles and cans to clean up after the mayhem subsides, and more residents wanting to stuff cotton in their ears to get some sleep.

If legislators are interested in making cosmetic changes to our laws to make Pennsylvania seem more a part of the 21st century, here’s one that, coincidentally, also happens to involve alcohol – privatize the state wine and liquor stores, so people can buy alcohol in grocery stores like they can in West Virginia, Ohio and just about every other state in the country.