Gentlemen, know your audience, and like it or not, the newbies are here, as a close-early order was extended by the Hudson City Council last week in a vote that did not feature full unity, but ended with a proviso, lightening the nightclub owners burden by removing Thursday nights from the A-List of early closure rules, and pushing closing time back a half-hour to 10:30 p.m. on weekends. This new, atypical rule invoked by using emergency powers, (and you thought that could only be done at the federal or state level ), still takes away a lucky — depending on who you ask — 13 hours of partying a week. The measure was placed initially in December, after the current flood of Minnesota visitors started regularly arriving, as the Gopher State’s bars and restaurants remained closed, mostly. (See below).
<News break: Where in the village, that’s a hint, could you see the first fir trees that had been decked out for the holiday now curbed for disposal and only decorating the edge of the street? At times with lights still on them, or even newly placed such bulbs In The Still Of The Night, as people remaining on holiday Made Waste Haste to un-accessorize. The answer in Where Did You See It? And another hint, just how soon do they all find their way to the chipper via Advanced Disposal, which is now also part of the conglomerate that is Waste Management, and vice versa, via The Merger Rules? The acquisition was announced via a simple postcard, so for once they are in this way truly green, Christmas trees withstanding. We just saved a bunch of them, even in the ranks of the deciduous.>
The Thursday inclusion of those three nights where 10 p.m. was D-day, puzzled me a bit at first. Granted, there are people who slam it on Thursday night, then tough it out during the Friday workday since it is only one time around (if they are fulltime employed and starting at dawn), then get their rest on Friday night and hit it again on Saturday night. But other then leading (loosely speaking) into the weekend, the Thursday scene is not that big a draw. It is the territory of open mic nights that have checked attendance, as they appeal mostly to folkies, such as the one at Dick’s Bar that had a good run of a few months, then mostly died out. Ziggy’s picked up some of the slack with Tuesday night open mic light. There were some quite cool flurries of plucking that hit home better then most, with the house band going on a long run to equip an old song standard with something new, and featured added such instrumentation that included not-the-norm percussion, from the assorted hangers-on in the audience, some clamoring to get up there on stage (like me if they featured a harder sound, which is rare these days, although that was not always the case — see old Dibbo’s days and the metal band with a name starting with “Mega,” also referencing the lead singer who was pushing 300 pounds). And are those who are coy, waiting in the wings and needing the encouragement to come up, and even then hesitating — briefly or not — to do so.
There is now one exception to the Thursday as lacked thunder rule — to a point. At Ziggy’s, which has tried to persist through the 10 p.m. weekend closure rule by having the bands do a two-hour set(s) that finish before the cops are at you door — and they so often will be — there has been the Thursday country night in the form of Tim Sigler. OK, this is my take on Tim, who has been playing around these parts for awhile. He is very solid, especially technically, everyone agrees on that, but not that greatly spectacular. Like a pop-ish band that has crafted there stuff, but doesn’t have the flair — although often careening — of an in-concert Led Zeppelin. Or one might say as the light-rock equivalent, Uncle Chunk, very steady, of course, but nothing to write home about, unless your dad in one of those class rock and Reeling (Forward) Through The Years hounds who likes just about everything in that realm.
So we go to the new Bar Ban time on weekends, such as they are regularly classified, of 10:30. (Do I really have to footnote the p.m.?) This will help, but just a bit. Here’s why, and like you would expect from HudsonWiNightlife, its a niche. In the downtown bar scene, everything goes in waves that gain prominence by the hour. Don’t you think it’s known that Dick’s has two-for-ones from 10:30 to 11:30 (again p.m.)? There are then more patrons that flow in at 12 and 1, and of course Minnesotans — even historically — at 2:15.
At Hudson Tap and its predecessor and the predecessor before that, they are busy early, but not long after midnight — again historically — it becomes a veritable ghost-town. Why? Hey, if you are hitting Interstate 94 from Minneapolis after a happy hour in those parts, do you think you are going to get here much before, say, 12:30? So riff-raff, its that’s what they are, will still be here 10:30 closing or not. (And there is something to be said about the idea that hard-core drunks don’t wait until late to come out. That, truth be told, is the realm of insomniacs. There are people who close up their shop at 5 p.m. then immediately hit the bar, happy hour or otherwise, and stay until close or until they are too tipsy to be functioning, then get home the best they can). The idea that of late, there are people passed out in a drunken stupor on the sidewalk, or increased amounts of vomit there — I would not doubt it, although all I have seen is a couple of patrons way beyond tipsy trying to keep positioned in their seated position on a curb while on the phone, talking as best they can. (I must admit, for full and total disclosure, that I like so many of the old regulars have stayed away since The New Patron Rules, so I likely have not seen it all).
Lastly, the course of things downtown has always been that on weekends, patrons in the know have progressed with their stops through a defined pattern, which changes over time, just as the go-to places change over time. Back about 15 years ago, for example, everyone started at the old Pudge’s at around 9:30 and then progressed northward. The lay of the land may not have changed much since then, even as venues have changed ownership and makeup. If that pattern would hold true today, and I don’t know that at this point it still holds sway, the somewhat demonized Smilin’ Moose would be a last stop.
So what good would 10 O’Clock versus 10:30 be?
<Does the tail wag the dog?>
Now, as of Wednesday, the Bar Ban Rules also have been relaxed in Minnesota, so now its more like a curfew with fewer people allowed. That means in-tavern service only until 10 p.m. — seven days a week, and that’s how it’s different — and capacity limits are set at 50 percent. And, although its not clear if this goes only for venues that are mostly eatery based, the rule is that only two people who are together can be seated at a bar rail. So one couple cannot sit down and join another.
So, if you want to go out with your posse? Head east young man. And on five or more of the seven days, last call in all of western Wisconsin is just what it always has been.
Playing out well? On holidays like New Year’s Eve, there were back to the inordinate amounts of partiers, but yes, a full half were thought to be out-of-towners, at least at Dick’s. But were the locals there true regulars? Two different servers, kinda, sorta shrugged their shoulders on that one.
So, leave Minneapolis at 10 and get to Wisconsin by 10:45. Thus, I guess on Friday and Saturday people will bypass Hudson and head for River Falls or New Richmond. Or Roberts, Hammond and Somerset, not to mention Star Prairie, Prescott and Ellsworth. And the even (Not As Big As Real Texas) town of El Paso for those of you with cowboy hats. Or be one of the untold — think hundreds — throngs who get here to have a nice dinner and if there is time, do some window antiques shopping.
<Continuations from cabbies to carolers>
End then there was this guy from Lyft, who it would seem had gone adrift, and just wishes he could complete his shift. Why? Look at the new main clientele he is driving late at night. “Those Minnesotans,” the quiet driver from the center of the Twin Cities said. “Crazy.” And no one himself included, seemed to know just where the city limits end, and where the village bars have their own set of closing rules — not to much different then before. So why could his passengers party on until well after midnight in many cases, but when you are headed further south, no such luck. As he crossed over the Lake Mallalieu bridge, he wondered this aloud, “why here?” So I told him about the fact that the two different municipalities are each governed over there own set of rules, and there also is one more to boot by the H word, in the township.
“Sheesh …”
But those hardy carolers from the Bible Baptist Church persevered on with their songs at the front door of myself and others, although standing as much together as my porch would allow, so social distancing was not what was on their minds. Rather sugar plums. But the songs seemed a bit shorter as voices were muffled by masks, and the littler ones pleaded for, only this year, “no encore PULLEASE!”