Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Springfield city council is a step closer to pulling all 3 a.m. liquor licenses.

A packed house looked on and participated in 45 minutes of testimony, much of which was that the absence of 3 a.m. licenses would cost jobs; and that people will simply cause trouble because they have nothing else to do.

But proponents of the idea say people getting out of bars with a 1 a.m. closing time proceed to the 3 a.m. bars, and that’s not a good thing.

Sangamon County is already implementing a 1 a.m. (or sooner) closing time for all bars.

“The concern that I see, as the guy in charge of the safety of 114,000 citizens and 269 employees,” said police chief Ken Scarlette, “is that those individuals are now going to flood our downtown, cause havoc, which has happened in the past. There is an individual here this evening that you heard from that orchestrated a meeting of downtown bar owners because of the problems that were happening at the 3 a.m. barsi, one of which was a homicide that happened here.”

Scarlette added people from Decatur come to Springfield to cause problems.

His voice was the only one in favor of ending the 3 a.m. licenses. A sampling of the rest:

“When conferences adjourn, people go out,” said Barry Friedman of the Alamo. “We all know what a convention is: it’s a reason to go learn. Some people never go out, but some people like to. We’ve all seen it with the firemen, the police – when all these come into town.”

“Our 1-to-3 business (accounts for) 40-55 percent of our revenue for those Thursday, Friday, and Saturday days,” said Josh Delcour of Clique. “Just on Saturday alone, we employ up to eight people between the hours of 1 and 3 a.m.”

“Killing 3 a.m. licenses will also kill downtown and our small businesses,” said Justin Rebbe, also of Clique.

The council advanced the matter to the June 18 meeting for a final vote.