21-only in IC: thoughts, gaping holes, and Zen wisdom

For the umpteenth time in the last 10 years, a 21-only ordinance is once again getting consideration in Iowa City.

Sigh.

A 21-only measure — raising the bar entry age from 19 to 21 — has been proposed and debated since I was college. I wrote at least one 21-only related article during my time on The Daily Iowan. It’s a contentious issue, dividing the city over how best to cure the plague of underage and binge drinking afflicting the downtown area. Voters rejected a 21-only referendum in (I think) 2007, but despite that Election Day resolution, the 21-only push won’t die.

Frustrated by failed attempts to curb downtown IC’s endemic alcohol problems, city council members passed the initial reading of a 21-only ordinance last night, paving the way for two more votes in the next month. If each is successful, those under the legal drinking age could be on the outside looking in as soon as June 1.

It’s about damn time.

Bluntly: I’m pro-21, but with an asterisk. Here’s why…

The claims uniting UI students and downtown bar owners in opposition are, I feel, pretty absurd and dubious. Case in point: their major arguments, on display in today’s Iowa City Press-Citizen:

University of Iowa student John Chiakulas warned that a move to 21-only would unite students against the city council, as well as have an adverse affect on the community when parties move away from downtown.

“You will have more kids walking around neighborhoods drunk, and there will be more destruction,” Chiakulas said. “I don't believe this is what the board wants to happen.”

Tom Lenoch, who manages three downtown bars and was one of the organizers of an initiative earlier this month to lower the entry age to 18, said people younger than 21 are not just going to bars to drink. The vast majority, he said, are there for entertainment such as music and comedy.

“There are other reasons these 19- and 20-year-olds go out; it’s not just to get wasted,” Lenoch said.

None of those arguments hold water for me. The gaping holes should be plain to see for anyone who attended the UI or lived in Iowa City’s central neighborhoods in the last decade:

1) There are already a ton of house parties. 21-only opponents claim that shifting the underage drinking scene from the hyper patrolled downtown to unsupervised keggers is dangerous. However, without a large pool of potential PAULAs, the ICPD sharks would have nothing better to do than cruise neighborhoods, bust house parties for bootlegging (selling alcohol without a license is illegal in Iowa), and answer disturbance calls.

2) There are already kids walking around downtown neighborhoods drunk. How else do they get home from the bars?

3) Belligerent drunks already cause a lot of damage, bodily and otherwise. Like the three guys who vandalized 18 cars on Washington Street last night.

4) How can anyone be naïve enough to believe that “the vast majority” of underage bar patrons are there for live music and comedy? Bitch, please. Though there is live music at a few bars, and a couple comedians (mostly just MTV reality show has-beens) stop in IC for shows, everyone goes to drink and be social. It’s what bars are for. When my friends and I went to The Que Bar (RIP), we didn’t go just to play pool. We went to play pool…and DRINK. (I, however, often drank free pints of water because I had no money for beer. My lack of moolah was, unfortunately, the reason I basically stayed away from the bar scene throughout college.)

Basically, this makes sense to me: if you aren’t old enough to drink, there’s no reason for you to be in a drinking establishment. And, as strange as it may sound, I think my 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old self would agree. I don’t want to sound like a fuddy-duddy, but neither I nor any of my friends went to bars at that age. We couldn’t drink, so there was no reason to go. (Well, we could drink. Given the number of PAULAs issued by the ICPD every year, it’s apparently not hard to buy alcohol at a bar if you’re underage. But I wasn’t a rich, Chicago suburbanite. Mommy and daddy wouldn’t take care of any citations, so I wasn’t going to risk getting one.)

I’ll admit, though: we did drink — at our apartment. Believe me: alcohol for home consumption wasn’t hard to get. Although a 21-only ordinance would keep underage kids away from bars, I know it wouldn’t keep them from playing “Hey, Mister” and scoring a case or two to pound down back home. (It also, I think, wouldn’t prevent anyone from binge drinking.) 21-only is a solution to underage drinking in bars, not underage drinking in general. As Tom of Churchill’s Cigar said, “College students drink. They’ve always drunk.” And UI students will continue to drink, whether or not they’re legal age. If they can’t drink in bars, they will no doubt drink elsewhere; their first two or three years of college will be, drinking wise, exactly like high school. (The real solution, I think, is to lower the drinking age, but that’s another post.) Nonetheless, I think 21-only will likely tame a number of the unbridled drinking problems inflicting downtown IC.

Likely tame.

The thing about a 21-only ordinance is that no one knows for sure what affect it would have. As always, proponents say it will do one thing while opponents say it will do another. Here’s where my pro-21 stance attains a Zen-like asterisk.

Why doesn’t Iowa City experiment with a 21-only ordinance? Why not enact it with a built-in six-month expiration so its impact can be judged? Its effectiveness or ineffectiveness will, I assume, become apparent over time, perhaps settling the debate once and for all. It will either work or not. Ames settled its 21-only debate after a similar experiment. For one year, the city allowed those aged 18 or 19 and over access to bars. It didn’t work out, and Ames returned to 21-only, but at least they experimented. I think the opposite kind of experimentation in Iowa City would shed a lot more light on the affects, giving city officials indispensable knowledge to move forward.

Theoretically, I think 21-only is a good idea. But maybe I’m wrong. Of course, I won’t know for sure until the whole ordeal gets put to rest, which may or may not be in the next few months.