Springing forward three weeks early for Daylight Saving Time
By IRENE MANAHAN Special to the Daily Press
NATIONWIDE I before E except after C. 30 days hath September. Look before you leap.
All are classic examples of mnemonics and phrasing tricks most everybody has ingrained into their minds from as far back as the fourth grade.
Here’s a new one: While we’re still springing forward, and not falling back, it seems that our leap is coming early this year. Daylight Saving Time (DST) is set to move up to Sunday, March 11. As a result, DST has been extended one whole month.
The new dates are the result of the Bush Administration’s Energy Policy Act of 2005.
The Act amends the Uniform Time Act of 1966 by extending DST three weeks earlier in spring and continuing for an extra week in the fall.
The shift was primarily designed to conserve energy. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the President's national energy plan encourages energy efficiency and conservation and promotes alternative and renewable energy sources. The Act was enacted to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy, to increase domestic production, to modernize the electricity grid and to encourage the expansion of nuclear energy.
“The Energy Policy Act of 2005 is going to help every American who drives to work, every family that pays a power bill and every small business owner hoping to expand,” President Bush said upon signing the bill in 2005. DST allows Americans to use less energy in lighting their homes by taking advantage of the longer and later daylight hours.
In the U.S., however, some territories have opted not to observe the time change, like Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the American Samoa Islands and Arizona (with the except for some Indian Reservations that stretch over neighboring states).
This choice makes sense for the areas close to the equator as day lengths are generally consistent throughout the year.
However, DST does not occur in Arizona because a majority of the state’s parents did-n’t like that their children couldn’t sleep when the sun was out and that they went to school when it was still dark outside.
Farmers also debated that DST didn't save time at all, but it merely shifted daylight to later in the evening.
Locals with an agricultural background are split on the issue.
The Farmer’s Market held on Arizona Avenue near the Third Street Promenade features fine produce from both Maggie’s and Rutiz farms, but they do not share the same opinion on the early coming of DST.
While DTS won’t make a difference on Maggie’s Farm, Rutiz Farms is happily anticipating the early change.
“Well I’m sure looking forward to it,” said an excited Maureen Rutiz, CO-owner of Rutiz Farms in San Luis Obispo County.“We would finish farming in the light instead of the dark.
“When it’s dark at 4:30 or 5 p.m., it really affects us out in the field working,” Rutiz said.“There is more of a chance of accidents at night, plus everyone would rather work out in the daylight. In our operation, we don’t go into the fields earlier than 7 a.m.”
She added that DST will make it “easier” and “more likely that we will just work later.”
While the time change won’t impact the Rutiz Farms operation in the fields, it will help them in the marketplace. Rutiz has a stand at the Farmer’s Market that usually closes when it starts getting dark.
“I think that when the time changes, people tend to stay out later and will be more inclined to cook more elaborate meals and work on food preparation,” said Rutiz.“Now we’ll be able to keep the stand open until 6 p.m. instead of at 5 p.m.”
At Maggie’s Farm in Agoura, workers are usually out working by 6 a.m.
The time difference “doesn’t really affect the business,” said Dennis Peitso, owner of Maggie’s Farm. “We’re so used to changing back and forth. We just follow the change and do it. The only thing we really have to do is change the clocks.”
Mr. America 2004, Jason Kozma is a personal trainer in Santa Monica and has a personal training gym the city and other locations spread throughout the Los Angeles County area.
Kozma starts working at about 8 a.m. and says that the time won’t affect his gym.
“People might change their appointments on the first day, depending if they remember to move their clocks forward or backward,” Kozma laughed. “My clients are more afraid of me than they are of time.”
While these businesses are not open during the middle of the night, hospitals always are. Clocks will “lose” an hour changing exactly at 2 a.m.
Ted Braun, hospital spokesman for the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital does not expect much of a change to come with the time difference. He explained, however, that employee hourly wages, as opposed to salaries, will be adjusted accordingly.
“Any hourly employee working the night shift from Saturday into Sunday would be paid an hour less,” Braun said.“They will get paid for the actual time they work and get paid an hour less.”
While Americans all over the country will get busy changing their clocks, surprisingly, DST will not phase many businesses after all.
With hundreds of watches and clocks in his store, Avak Ourishian, owner of Tic Time at Santa Monica Place sets the myth of his business straight.
“We only set the watches we’re selling and leave the others as they are,” Ourishian said.
“I’ve heard people from other stores say they do change them, but I doubt it very much,”said a laughing Ourishian.“It’s just not logical to go through and change them all.”
The Santa Monica Fire Department reminds readers to also replace the batteries in their smoke alarms. Information.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 10, 2007. Read the original PDF.