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DC Soccer Louts Can Get Hammered 22 Hours a Day During World Cup

Bars can stay open all day and night during the monthlong sporting event (with a two-hour alcohol break at 4 AM).

Image by skynesher via Getty Images.

DC soccer fans can drink pretty much nonstop during this November’s World Cup, thanks to legislation the DC Council passed Tuesday. The “World Cup Emergency Amendment Act of 2022” allows bars to remain open 24 hours a day and serve alcohol between 6 AM and 4 AM while soccer matches unfold in Qatar.

Whether any bars in DC can actually staff their establishments around the clock amid a historic labor shortage remains to be seen.

In addition to repressing LGBTQ+ people, arresting and deporting workers who protested the medieval conditions under which they’ve toiled to build soccer infrastructure, and imprisoning people who have sex outside marriage, Qatar is seven hours ahead of the US.  The matches begin on November 20 with a sure-to-be barn burner: Qatar-Ecuador at 11 AM ET. In subsequent days the games will air at 5, 8, and 11 AM as well as at 2 PM, a time when you could at least make a case to have a drink.

Senior editor

Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.