i'd say bell boom. when you're just starting out you don't have as many flowers to maintain, and you're just working on raising money for your house and pwps and stuff. bell boom will give you that extra boost to make money, especially when you're first starting out.
then once you feel like you have the money, switch to beautiful town. that's what i did and it worked very well!
I personally favor Night Owl because, rather than play the Stalk Market, I sell bugs and sharks to earn my bells. Starting out, when the town doesn't have that many flowers to maintain, there's no real need for Beautiful Town. With Night Owl you can make multiple trips to the island per night, allowing you to catch more of the expensive bugs and fish and not have to worry about Re-Tail closing too early. I've never tried Bell Boom because I didn't want purchases to cost more, so I can't speak to the worthiness.
I will say though that once your town is more developed and you have a ton of flowers, Beautiful Town is a great choice. I wish we could have two ordinances simultaneously so I could keep stores open longer and not have to water flowers, but alas.
I personally really like Beautiful Town. But personally I do not think it's essential to the beginning of your game.
Night Owl is much more useful to me because I usually have more time to play at night, and since my town does not have many flowers at the moment, it is very easy and quick to water them.
Bell Boom is also very useful for the beginning of your game, but stock all the items you need to sell, to sell all at once when activating this ordinance.
When I started I used the night owl ordinance which was completely pointless seeing as I ended up time travelling anyway. After that I switched to beautiful town. 4 years later I still haven't changed it, it's the best ordinance.
I had Night Owl to start with, for the same reason ZombifiedHorror mentioned - catching and selling sharks and beetles is a lot easier when you don't have to worry about Re-Tail closing on you. That's a good way to get bells early one, so you can pay off loans and PWPs.
Now that my town is set, I've switched to Beautiful, because I want to focus on hybrid breeding. Not having to worry about every single flower will be nice.
It might be best to see just how you play - do you wake up early? play later at night? not want to worry about pulling weeds and watering flowers? That will help determine which ordinance works best for you.
I've always just done beautiful town from the get-go because Im lazy lmao but how late does retail stay open with the night owl ordinance ? I've just restarted for the 1/1 challenge and i'm curious about this now
I did pick bell early on. You do get two premium items on the board at retail. The downside is prices are higher at the stores and on the island.
Switched to beautiful after a month and love it. Just water flowers for more hybrids.
When I started my town the clock got set 4 hours behind. This way I can play late at night and still have retail open.
Hope the next game give 2 choices. Beautiful and another choice would be nice.