Proponents of the extending the hours of beer sales say the 10 p.m. deadline has done little to curb alcoholism and instead just decreased excise tax revenue. Photo by Nathan Greenhalgh.

VILNIUS — Next year alcohol vendors will be able to sell beer and cider until midnight, two hours past the current cutoff time in Lithuania.

On Tuesday the Seimas voted 47-12 with 13 abstentions to extend the time limit starting in January 2010.

Conservatives who oppose the measure say it will exacerbate already high alcoholism rates throughout the country. But members of the Liberal Movement Party argue that alcoholism levels have not decreased and the extra sales would add to the government coffers.

Seimas member Andrius Endzinas of the Liberal Movement told the local press that the expanded hours of sales would also curb consumption of home-brewed alcohol, a common remedy in rural areas

Lithuania comes in fourteenth place in the 2004 World Health Organization study of alcohol consumption rates by country.

“Consumption of alcohol is higher among the rural population,” a WHO report reads. “Traditions of drinking heavily, which were formed over a period of several decades after the war, became stronger when home brew alcohol became more widespread and accessible. The rural population remains the principal market for illegal alcohol.”

The law does not affect liquor, which is still illegal to sell from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. as before.