If you don’t enjoy the return to dark mornings in March after daylight saving time resumes, Assemblyman Kansen Chu (D-San Jose) has submitted a bill to eliminate daylight saving from the California lexicon.
If Assembly Bill 2496 were enacted, California would remain on Pacific Standard Time throughout the year. Hawaii and Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation) already do this.
AB 2496 is simple and direct, “ Section 1. It is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to establish United States Standard Pacific Time as the standard time within the state during the entire year.”
In 1949, 55 percent of the state’s voters approved Proposition 12, which established DST in California from the last Sunday in April until the last Sunday in September. The Chamber of Commerce and civic organizations supported the proposition. Interestingly, the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish churches opposed DST because earlier hours of attendance at church interferes with both morning and evening services.
The motion picture industry also opposed it because “it collects its revenue from theaters, and statistics show that ‘Daylight Saving’ reduces the revenue of theaters from 20 percent to 35 percent. Such disastrous blow should not be inflicted upon important industry, which employs more 100,000 people,” according to opponents’ statement on that ballot pamphlet.
