An Assembly committee today defeated a lawmaker’s effort to allow San Francisco bars to serve alcohol until 4 a.m.—two hours past the statewide “last call.”

The Assembly Governmental Organization Committee voted 12-5 against the bill by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. The measure, AB 2433, needed at least eight more supportive votes to clear the 24-member panel.

Leno said longer hours for alcohol service would provide a needed boost for San Francisco’s economy. He said tourism and conventions, the city’s top industry, would benefit because some business currently is lost to cities with later bar closing times.

“We think this is a real shot in the arm,” Leno told the committee.

Leno brought a large group of supporters to the hearing, including bar owners, musicians, disc jockeys and bouncers.

A lobbyist for the California Restaurant Association said extending last call would “relieve economic pressures” in a city where 7 percent of the restaurants have closed since late 2001.

Liam Shy, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Youth Commission, said the extension of liquor services would even help the homosexual community.

“Young lesbian and gay people use nightclubs to find their first gay friends,” Shy told the committee.

Opponents also arrived at the hearing in large numbers.

Art Croney, lobbyist for Responsible Citizens Inc., said extending bar hours would simply increase the number of drunks in San Francisco. Croney said he used to drink “a lot” and that he remembers drinking until closing time and then driving home.

“By the grace of God I didn’t get caught, by the grace of God I didn’t hurt myself or anybody else,” Croney said.

Referring to Leno’s claims of economic gains for the Bay area, Croney said extending last call also would “be good for the ambulance companies and the police business and the lawyers.”

Leonard White of the Oakland Police Department said Oakland doesn’t have the resources for more overtime pay and other costs that would increase if alcohol-related problems increased during a time of day that typically is relatively quiet for law enforcement.

“I can’t find a way for law enforcement at this time to support a bill that would put more impaired drivers out at a later hour,” White said. “San Francisco is not an island ... this will be a regional problem.”

Paula Birdsong, state executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, also testified against Leno’s measure, saying it would result in “exposing innocent citizens to impaired drivers.”

The debate over drunken driving pitted two sets of statistics against each other.

Leno cited data from the U.S. National Traffic Safety Administration which indicated that states with later alcohol-service hours and better public transportation have fewer alcohol-related driving deaths than those in which bars close earlier. Part of the reason, he said, is that the demand for taxis is spread over a longer period of time, and fewer drunks will drive if they have an easy time getting a cab.

A California Highway Patrol spokesman testified that there is 21 percent increase in alcohol-related collisions shortly after the 2 a.m. closing time. Opponents predicted that Leno’s bill would simply push these accidents farther into the early morning hours, and one committee member worried that they might take a toll on the busy 5 a.m. commuter traffic in his district.

Leno’s bill would not have applied to all establishments in the city. Zoning laws would have limited the measure’s impact on some neighborhoods, and businesses would have needed a special permit to serve alcohol until 4 a.m.