Bar owners and liquor vendors should be allowed a little leeway, as long as it does not get out of hand.

The DeKalb City Council is considering extending Thursday night alcohol sales an extra hour, allowing the vendors to be open until 2 a.m. Friday mornings.

After Mayor Greg Sparrow cast the deciding vote Monday, the ordinance made it through the first gate and will come up for a final vote on Feb. 25.

The proposal, as it stands, sounds simple enough. Bar and liquor store owners want to be open an extra hour on Thursday nights to bring in some extra cash.

But there are some glitches along the way that need to be straightened out.

Residents must be a high priority concern. Apparently, people in the Locust/John/College street areas are having problems with people hanging around the areas and traipsing through private property when the bars close.

There also are the problems of paying for and establishing adequate police patrol and regulating the noise level that tends to pop up around bars.

Business owners should not be given the shaft when an opportunity opens up for them to make more money, but the big picture must be considered.

In this case, residents should get top priority but also should be willing to give a little. Especially in cases where the cart came before the horse. If you don’t want bright lights at night, don’t move near a baseball park.

Sparrow assures that giving the bar owners and liquor stores this extra hour will have minimal effect on the surrounding residential areas.

He claims the problem is not with late-night bar hours, but instead with the way the situation is handled. Sparrow said the police department has beefed up security around the problem area with foot patrols—and says it’s been working.

In addition, Sparrow said the bars are not necessarily the problem. Instead it’s the so-called “party spot” in which people wander around the streets looking for a party.

Sparrow said the police are well aware of party problems in the area and have been successfully lessening them. Patrolling is not a problem on Thursday nights because it fits into their shifts without added costs.

The argument seems logical enough. The extra hour won’t put an added strain on the police department, and it might bring a little extra money to the liquor sellers who have been hit with higher taxes.

But one thing citizens should be leery of is the possibility for politicking.

It seems harmless to give the bars and liquor stores this little added bonus. This is assuming, however, that the politicians involved are good for their word.

It is fine to give the bars, as business owners in the community, this little bit, but it’s another story when they come back—as many plan to do—and ask for more hours throughout the week.

This should not be viewed as the liquor sellers getting one step closer to their goal. And politicians, hopefully, will be honest enough to not be softening the market to get a little political kickback come election time.