State College Happy Hours Appear Unchanged as Loosened Law Takes Effect

A loosening of Pennsylvania’s happy-hour regulations appears to have had no impact in State College — at least for now.

Earlier this summer, state lawmakers approved a revision that allows bars and restaurants to offer as many as four hours’ worth of adult-beverage discounts on any given day. The prior limit had been two hours a day.

Licensed establishments are still limited to a 14-hour weekly maximum for drink-price discounts. The adjusted law is meant to give establishment operators more leeway over how to run their businesses, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report.

Officially, the change took effect in late July. But so far, observations of establishments in State College proper have found no bars or restaurants taking advantage of the eased regulation.

‘We’re not changing anything at Dante’s,’ said Jennifer Zangrilli, operations director at Dante’s Inc. The local company includes the Deli, Mario and Luigi’s, Inferno, Bar Bleu and Hi-Way Pizza.

Zangrilli said the company runs two-hour happies every day, allowing customers a chance to benefit from discounted pricing no matter when during the week they visit. Sticking with the current approach, she said, appears best both for Dante’s customers and for the business.

Likewise, as leader of the State College Tavern Association, a local trade group, Zangrilli said she knows of no area establishments that have altered their happy hours since the revamped state law took effect. She said Tavern Association members — that is, local establishment operators — are expected to talk about the issue at an association meeting later this month.

At Mad Mex on South Pugh Street, General Manager Colleen McIntyre-Luke said she doubts the Mexican bar and restaurant will change its happy hours.

She said the revised law ‘really doesn’t allow you to alter very much. And we kind of have our specials in such a way that people know what they’re getting when they walk in the door.

‘We don’t like to mess with a good thing,’ McIntyre-Luke said.

Chris Rosengrant, who operates the Lion’s Den on South Garner Street, said the changed law may have a greater effect on big-city clubs that are open only a couple days a week.

Most licensed establishments in State College are open six or seven days a week.

‘Places that are open six, seven days a week, I would assume, wouldn’t change’ their happy hours, Rosengrant said.

For a six- or seven-day-a-week operation, he said, four-hour happy hours don’t carry much financial benefit. But they could ‘create a more dangerous drinking environment,’ he added.

Borough police Chief Tom King has expressed some reservations about the happy-hour law change. He said he plans to meet soon with some local bar and restaurant operators, just to see what they’re thinking in light of the regulation change.

His understanding is that no one locally advocated for the loosened restriction, King said.