<p>For Atlanta bars, its out with the old and in with a new closing time.</p><p>A law takes effect just after the clock strikes midnight Thursday that requires bars to make last call at 2:30 a.m., a half-hour before the new 3 a.m. closing time.</p><p>The Atlanta City Council voted Dec. 2 to require all bars and nightclubs throughout the city to close an hour earlier. The decision stemmed from the November shooting deaths of two men outside a bar in the citys Buckhead district that brought the total to nine slayings in three years.</p><p>Commander J.P. Spillane of the Atlanta Police Department said that between 50 and 100 officers, including plainclothes police seeking an illegal after-hours drink and monitoring bars for overcrowded occupancy and fire code violations, were to be on duty in Buckhead on New Years Eve.</p><p>We need to have enough officers, enough eyes and ears on the street, to make sure everybody has a safe New Years, he said.</p><p>The punishment for violating the closing ordinance, a misdemeanor, can be a $1,000 fine, a maximum of a year in jail, or both.</p><p>Some bar owners said the new closing time wouldnt effect their New Years Eve crowds.</p><p>I think people who come here to see the New Year in at midnight are going to leave in the next hour or two anyway, said Phillip Good, owner of CJs Landing.</p><p>City Attorney Linda DiSantis said that the four 24-hour clubs in Atlanta cannot serve alcohol after regular bar hours.</p><p>But a phone message at Backstreet said: We are always open and pouring, and despite recent inaccurate news reports, we will continue to be open and pouring.</p><p>Warren Bruno, chairman of the Atlanta Licensed Beverage Council, said the city has gone too far with the new ordinance. Several Buckhead bars have been cited for discrimination for letting women in free, and others have been cited for offering drink specials, such as pitcher night, because the code does not allow bars to offer discounts on alcohol, Bruno said.</p><p>They went from zero enforcement to zero tolerance, he said.</p>
