I have done date relevant queries like this;
$query = "SELECT ID, Title, Category, Priority, Sticky, Author, More, Introtext,UCASE( DATE_FORMAT(Publish_Up,'%b %d, %Y %l:%i %p'))AS publishDate, Publish_Dwn, URLS
FROM content
WHERE Category = 1 AND Publish_Up <= DATE_ADD(NOW(),INTERVAL 1 HOUR) AND (Publish_Dwn > DATE_ADD(NOW(),INTERVAL 1 HOUR) OR Sticky=1) AND Priority > 0
ORDER BY sticky DESC, priority ASC, id DESC LIMIT ".$show;
The DATE_ADD compensates for the server time zone which is one hour than local time. I have the date fields specified as "datetime" however.