# Arizona and Daylight Savings Time **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 3, 2001, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657 "2001-04-03T17:30:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/1 "2001-04-03T17:30:27Z")
As many of you may know, Arizona does not follow DST. A mailing list I subscribe to (Gizmorama - [http://www.shagmail.com/sub/sub-gizmo.html](http://www.shagmail.com/sub/sub-gizmo.html)) asserted recently that this is due to a senator that “owned a bunch of drive-in movies”. It sounds ULish to me, but I couldn’t find anything here or on Snopes. Anyone know the Straight Dope? ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/2 "2001-04-03T18:26:32Z")
The questions about Arizona and DST spring up here every year around this time (along with questions about Hawaii and those pesky portions of Indiana). Arizona has tried DST, but the state’s official line is that they don’t want DST because they don’t see the need for it. The state is in the southern latitudes. It’s on the west end of the Mountain Time Zone, so it has late sunsets for the most part (as compared to Utah or New Mexico or Colorado). Some of the Indian reservations in Arizona do use DST, but others don’t. What’s the time period that the potential UL refers to. AZ’s senators for a long period were Carl Hayden and Barry Goldwater and neither of them were prone to make such Chicago alderman-like legislation. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/3 "2001-04-03T18:45:15Z")
Upon further review, Arizona dropped out of DST in 1966. AZ’s senators at that time were Democrat Carl Hayden, who at the time was starting his 40th year in the Senate. He was the chair of several committees during his Senate tenure, including Appropriations. I doubt that he would have felt the need to monkey with DST to make a few extra bucks, especially since he was about 87 years old at the time. The other senator was Paul Fannin, a Republican, who took over Goldwater’s seat, which he abandoned to run for president. Fannin was in the oil business before he ran for office. Again, he might have owned a few drive-ins, but I doubt it was his principal business. And how much money would he have made? Isn’t it far more likely that Arizona doesn’t have DST because the people of Arizona don’t like it and feel it isn’t needed. There are large scale protests in Mexico over DST. The entire country of Japan rejected DST also. It would also have been helpful if you’re link actually provided the info you were trying to disprove. ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/4 "2001-04-03T18:46:40Z")
No time period was specified. Since this is a state issue, I kind of got the impression that the author was talking about a state senator rather than a US senator. ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/5 "2001-04-03T18:54:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*It would also have been helpful if you’re link actually provided the info you were trying to disprove. \*\* As far as I know it’s not available on the web. And it was just mentioned in passing, the information I gave in my OP was all that was said in the message. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/6 "2001-04-03T18:59:55Z")
It’s possible an AZ state senator who owned some drive-ins could have been opposed to DST, but so are most people in AZ from my experience. They seem quite happy to be in Standard Time all year round. ---
**Author:** ![MrVisible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@MrVisible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrVisible)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/7 "2001-04-03T19:06:21Z")
Have you ever been to Arizona? We’ve got daylight here like you wouldn’t believe. Why would we need to save any? Heck, come on down in August, we’re gonna be desperate to give some away. Here, take a bushel home for the little wife, too… ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2001, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/8 "2001-04-03T19:16:48Z")
There was some federal regulation which applied, called the “Uniform Time Act of 1966”: > [@](#): > > By 1962, the transportation industry found the lack of nationwide consistency in time observance confusing enough to push for federal regulation. This drive resulted in the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-387). The Act mandated standard time within the established time zones and provided for advanced time: clocks would be advanced one hour beginning at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and turned back one hour at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in October. States were allowed to exempt themselves from DST as long as the entire state did so. If a state chose to observe DST, the time changes were required to begin and end on the established dates. In 1968, Arizona became the first state to exempt itself from DST. In 1972, the Act was amended (P.L. 92-267), allowing those states split between time zones to exempt either the entire state or that part of the state lying within a different time zone. The newly created Department of Transportation (DOT) was given the power to enforce the law. Currently, the following do not observe DST: Arizona, Hawaii, the part of Indiana in the eastern time zone, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. I would guess that Arizona’s federal reps got involved in that they had to officially exempt themselves. You will note that the parts of Indiana on eastern time would also be in the western end of a time zone. IIRC, Hawaii is also on the western edge of its time zone. It would be reasonable that people in these locations felt that their sunsets were already late enough, and they didn’t wish to have to send their little kids off to school in the dark. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/9 "2001-04-06T02:13:01Z")
Arizona? The better question is why the rest of us DO observe this custom. It’d make just as much sense to spill the silverware drawer every spring and have to put it all back in. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arizona-and-daylight-savings-time/60657/10 "2001-04-06T04:12:00Z")
Obviously it does make sense as a whole to observe DST. We are not a nation of farmers. We don’t need it to be light from 4am-5am when most of us are sleeping anyway. It is much better and safer to be light from 7:30p - 8:30p. In the Summer that way kids can go OUT and play, muggers are less likely to attack you in the dark etc etc yadda yadda yadda It’s is only when you get south that you don’t need it. Since the further south you go the more evenly your time is divided. For example Quito Ecuador has about 12 hours of daylight and darkness year round. There DST wouldn’t make sense.