PHOENIX ÷ A stroke of the governor's pen is all that's left to push bar closing times back to 2:30 a.m.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Michelle Reagan, R-Scottsdale, which would change last call from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. and extend the time patrons can remain on bar premises, was passed by a vote of 19-11 in the Senate yesterday.

Gov. Janet Napolitano is expected to sign the bill into law.

Lawmakers explaining their votes echoed sentiments expressed in last week's Committee of the Whole, where the bill gained initial approval.

Sen. Robert Blendu, R-Litchfield Park, voted against the measure, saying his concerns for public safety outweighed any financial benefit or tourism boost a later closing time would bring the state.

Linda Binder, a Republican senator from Lake Havasu City who was born in England, approved the bill, saying Arizona's early closing time is a big turnoff to foreign visitors who are accustomed to much more lax hours at their bars back home.

Opponents of the bill say they will not formally protest the bill or make any last-minute efforts to sway Napolitano's opinion.

"She probably will sign it, and there's nothing we can do about it," said Marcia Harmon, state executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Harmon said MADD opposes the later last call for multiple reasons, including a lack of law enforcement, human resources and what it sees as a potentially deadly mix of early-morning commuters and drunken drivers.

"It's going to have a definite impact," Harmon said. "I guess within the next year, we are going to see the statistics start to change."

Supporters of the bill argued that extending the amount of time between last call and closing time from 15 minutes to 30 minutes would give drivers enough time to sober up and drive home.

Harmon called the idea ridiculous and said that keeping bars open longer will only result in more intoxicated drivers on the road an hour later than usual.

"Common sense tells you that things are going to happen at that hour in the morning," Harmon said. "There's a lot of concern for the people who will be headed out to work at that hour and will now have to contend with the last callers."

People in the bar and restaurant industry lobbied heavily for a later last call. Approval in the Senate was good news for an industry that often gets the brunt of legislative regulation, said Bill Weigele, president of the Arizona Licensed Beverage Association.

"It was a major breakthrough for the industry," Weigele said. "It's probably the first positive thing to come out of the Legislature in a long time."

Weigele said he expects the later hours to pump money into Arizona's economy through increased tourism.

The Tucson Police Department is opposed to the bill.

Just how much the UA will be impacted by this later last call is yet to be seen, but don't expect professors to let hungover students off the hook, said UA spokeswoman Sharon Kha.

"To a certain extent, this may not affect the university as much as one would think, because a lot of our students are underage and can't drink in a bar anyway," Kha said.

However, for students who plan on stretching would-be later bar hours to the max, Kha stresses the importance of drinking responsibly.

"The university would encourage people to monitor what they are drinking and take advantage of the free taxi ride home from the Do the Ride Thing program," Kha said.