Underage Bar Entry - Ames vs Iowa City

[Kyle]

Have the unregulated house parties resulted in any recent violent crime, serious injuries or death?

Um, the last riot caused several hundred thousand dollars in damage. It resulted from police breaking up a large private party. The primary lesson learned from the last VEISHEA riot is that greater restrictions do not necessarily lead to greater safety. They have since relaxed some of the alchohol restrictions on campus, and there was a student push to change Ames to a 19+ rule similar to IC (which fizzed out like many student initiatives do). Any good ideas that came out of the VEISHEA Commission were related to reducing the size of off campus parties. Needless to say, I have never heard of a riot that started when police broke up a party at a bar.

What qualifies as "binge drinking" often does not actually rise to the level of problem drinking. It is often defined as 3-5 drinks or more on a single occasion. I would also be very curious to find out how many students needed to recieve medical treatment due to drinking. Not a lot of people get so drunk at a bar that they need to get their stomach pumped. The concentration of bars in a central location also makes it easier to provide public transportation. They used to have a great drunk bus in Ames that would pick you up if you called, but now they only run a fixed route at night that goes by the dorms and bars because of cost.

If IC is like Ames then you have a very prohibition-esq. group that is pushing this agenda. They think that they can somehow legislatively mandate possitive choices. It didn't work during prohibition though, and it won't work now. IC has a good thing going with the 19+ age limit, don't destroy it. If they wanted to actually make a difference then they would require bars to more strictly enforce the drinking age and crack down on them if they failed to do so.

[bmuff]

I think that it is dumb that IC and CF let 19/20 year olds into bars while Ames doesn't. Just thinking from a sports perspective, imagine taking a recruit to IC and he sees the nightlife there and the difference in Ames. IC has TONS of bars that anyone can get into during their first year in college. ISU has comparatively fewer bars and entertainment and even though the bars on Welch are fun, most students can't enter them until their junior year.

If ISU were to put that law in place, some bars could always just stay 21+, but others would start allowing younger students in and make more money. These bars expand and new ones open. Campustown eventually thrives. I'd bet that 1/2 of ISU's students are either 19 or 20. That's a lot of money that these places could capture...and it's not like those kids are staying sober. They're at house and dorm parties where the drinking is less controlled and the cops can't patrol the whole town.

[HILLCYD]

I think that it is dumb that IC and CF let 19/20 year olds into bars while Ames doesn't. Just thinking from a sports perspective, imagine taking a recruit to IC and he sees the nightlife there and the difference in Ames. IC has TONS of bars that anyone can get into during their first year in college. ISU has comparatively fewer bars and entertainment and even though the bars on Welch are fun, most students can't enter them until their junior year.

That's what I want from my recruits, picking a school based on the bar scene.

[cytech]

Um, the last riot caused several hundred thousand dollars in damage. It resulted from police breaking up a large private party. The primary lesson learned from the last VEISHEA riot is that greater restrictions do not necessarily lead to greater safety. They have since relaxed some of the alchohol restrictions on campus, and there was a student push to change Ames to a 19+ rule similar to IC (which fizzed out like many student initiatives do). Any good ideas that came out of the VEISHEA Commission were related to reducing the size of off campus parties. Needless to say, I have never heard of a riot that started when police broke up a party at a bar.

What qualifies as "binge drinking" often does not actually rise to the level of problem drinking. It is often defined as 3-5 drinks or more on a single occasion. I would also be very curious to find out how many students needed to recieve medical treatment due to drinking. Not a lot of people get so drunk at a bar that they need to get their stomach pumped. The concentration of bars in a central location also makes it easier to provide public transportation. They used to have a great drunk bus in Ames that would pick you up if you called, but now they only run a fixed route at night that goes by the dorms and bars because of cost.

If IC is like Ames then you have a very prohibition-esq. group that is pushing this agenda. They think that they can somehow legislatively mandate possitive choices. It didn't work during prohibition though, and it won't work now. IC has a good thing going with the 19+ age limit, don't destroy it. If they wanted to actually make a difference then they would require bars to more strictly enforce the drinking age and crack down on them if they failed to do so.

If I am not mistaken the veisha riots were mainly caused by the police closing down a number of campus town bars early, due to over crowding. It may be true they also broke up a big house party, but the majority of the rioters were bar goers.

[chadm]

Needless to say, I have never heard of a riot that started when police broke up a party at a bar.

The 93 riot was enhanced when the cops made the bars close at 12. That put all the drunks on welch which ****** them off that they couldn't drink the next 2 hours they had planned.
The next year I was a bouncer at one of the bars and they took the opposite approach. They made us keep the people in the bar afterhours and couldn't let anyone leave. Said we could serve drinks after 2 am. They let the bars leave at different intervals. This kept the people on the street at a minimum. The problem is the one's that wanted to leave to get home where on bar arrest. This caused fights in the bar.

[CYdTracked]

That's what I want from my recruits, picking a school based on the bar scene.

Completely agree. We have had hard enough times with those of age in the past keeping out of trouble in the campustown area. If the bar age is a big selling factor to a recruit I'm not sure I want someone that puts too much thought into that in the program.

[Kyle]

If I am not mistaken the veisha riots were mainly caused by the police closing down a number of campus town bars early, due to over crowding. It may be true they also broke up a big house party, but the majority of the rioters were bar goers.

At least with regard to the most recent riot you are mistaken. The problems began when police broke up a large party on Hunt Street (just west of Welch) and brilliantly pushed the party goers towards Welch.
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~dschwein/riotreport.pdf
Many of the bars locked down when things got messy, and some of the eventual rioters had been at the bars at some point. It didn't help when many people just trying to leave the bars were hit with pepper spray at the bar entrance.

[Kyle]

The 93 riot was enhanced when the cops made the bars close at 12. That put all the drunks on welch which ****** them off that they couldn't drink the next 2 hours they had planned.
The next year I was a bouncer at one of the bars and they took the opposite approach. They made us keep the people in the bar afterhours and couldn't let anyone leave. Said we could serve drinks after 2 am. They let the bars leave at different intervals. This kept the people on the street at a minimum. The problem is the one's that wanted to leave to get home where on bar arrest. This caused fights in the bar.

One common thread seems to be the retardation of law enforcement. The smart approach would be a middle ground where the bars close at different times but do not force people to stay. This avoids the big crowds (necessary for any riot) and will not **** people off as much as not allowing them freedom of movement.

[HOTDON]

At least with regard to the most recent riot you are mistaken. The problems began when police broke up a large party on Hunt Street (just west of Welch) and brilliantly pushed the party goers towards Welch.
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~dschwein/riotreport.pdf
Many of the bars locked down when things got messy, and some of the eventual rioters had been at the bars at some point. It didn't help when many people just trying to leave the bars were hit with pepper spray at the bar entrance.

You are correct, in fact Hunt St. looked like a block long house party that night. I was working in Campustown and drove down Hunt St behind the police cruiser on the scene. Something was on fire, couch perhaps. It was probably out of control, but making everyone leave just riled them up.
My manager and I closed down and watched hundreds of people stream by for the next hour or so. We decided it was time to split, just in time to see the police in riot gear rounding Heyward Ave.

Completely off topic, but I'll never forget that.

[ornryactor]

I'm gathering that unregulated house parties are presently the norm in Ames (as they were when I was at ISU) and further that the police department doesn't get involved in busting them. Yes or No?

Have the unregulated house parties resulted in any recent violent crime, serious injuries or death?

That's overstating it. Yes, unregulated house (read: apartment) parties are the norm in Ames. Police absolutely do get involved in busting them, when they see/hear one while on patrol, or get notified about one. That said, out of all the parties in Ames, a fairly small percentage get busted, because ISU students know the importance of keeping the party enough under control that the cops don't show up. I've only been to one party in two years that did not show concern when things started getting to the point where cops would bust it. The marching band is infamous for its huge parties (400+ people) during football season, and when the cops figured out that they were a regular occurence, they started dropping by a whole lot more. Generally, they are fairly lenient with big house parties (compared to what they *could* do), but they certainly don't ignore them.

As far as the crime/injury/death question, the answer is no- nothing newsworthy, anyway. The last incident that I know of would be the VEISHEA 2004 riot, where a house party played a part. House parties result in a lot of petty theft and a little bit of damaged property, but that's about it, that I know of.

[247cy]

Speaking of Veishea...growing up within 25 miles of Ames, I've had the chance to witness some pretty silly ideas that the city/university have come up with. They forced the bars to close early one year, like 11 or midnight, and a riot ensuded with buring couches and knocked down streetlights and signs. I believe there were some rocks and things thrown at the cops as they dispensed tear gas. Very surreal, like something from a Palestinian/Isreli conflict. (A riot isn't a riot without burning furniture, by the way.) That was the first one, back in 92/93 or so? It's all sorta mushed together in my head now.

The other pure genius idea was to book a KISS concert (with special guest Ted Nugent) the same weekend as Veishea 1997. Now, I'm not saying ALL KISS/Nugent fans are ner-do-wells, but it did bring a lot of people in to town that normally didn't have any reason to be there. They came for the concert, and then stuck around for the parties that were all over town. Well...around 3 in the morning Michael Runyan (non ISU student) stabbed Harold "Uri" Sellers (non ISU student) in the chest and killed him outside a frat house. They cancelled Veishea for a year or two after that one.

[Broodwich]

I grew up in Iowa City, went to ISU for 2 years, UI for one, then back to ISU until I graduated. I can remember having to travel to UNI or Iowa City so we could bar-hop when I was underage, and was able to rationalize how unfair it seemed at the time that Ames had a strict 21 and over policy.

At 33 years of age, I can say that I think Ames has a long way to go to make the community more student friendly and oriented, but I don't think that allowing admittance to a bar or tavern at 19 or over is one of these steps. After walking over piles of vomit on the Ped Mall in Iowa City after Pints or Flip-Night I don't think this is a positive move for the community as a whole to accommodating the partying habits an age demographic of two years. While UI may wear it's Top 10 party school ranking as a badge of honor, I think it's caused a lot of problems on their campus that we would be smart to avoid. Ames doesn't have to be Iowa City, and quite frankly people who would choose UI over ISU because it has a "better party scene", well I say have a good time in black and gold.

To the younger contributors to this board who are chomping at the bit to go to the bar at ISU, I have a spoiler for you in that for the most part the bars in Ames are _very_ lame. When I turned 21 and finally got it it was like the scene in the Wizard of Oz were they pull the curtain back and find out that the Wizard is just a little old man. Same thing with the the bar scene in Ames. You will stand in line for an hour trying to get in to a place, while athletes and big breasted girls get in ahead of you. Then you will be treated poorly by the help in the bar, and pay twice as much for it.

[iccyfan]

If IC is like Ames then you have a very prohibition-esq. group that is pushing this agenda. They think that they can somehow legislatively mandate possitive choices. It didn't work during prohibition though, and it won't work now. IC has a good thing going with the 19+ age limit, don't destroy it. If they wanted to actually make a difference then they would require bars to more strictly enforce the drinking age and crack down on them if they failed to do so.

Your first sentence couldn't be further from the truth! It's a group of community-minded adults who are reacting to a serious public health issue. I'm friendly with a number of them and they're recruiting me to participate, but I assure you they're not tee-totalers.

You've hit on a number of good points and I'll respond to them. The IC City Council last considered raising the age of entry to 21 in 2005; it lost on a 4-3 vote. Coincidentally, exit polling conducted at the 2006 council elections showed 62% of voting IC residents favored "a 21 ordinance". The bar owners association has been promising for years that they'll do a better job of policing themselves, but the number of PAULA citations has not decreased and unlike Ames, there have been multiple tragedies in IC associated with underage drinking.

As the City Council has chosen not to act, the group is presently gathering signatures to put the issue on the November ballot and let the voters decide. Nothing will happen if they don't gather the prerequisite number of signatures, but I don't see the harm in putting it before the voters!

The admittance age to bars in Ames was 19 when I got to ISU and I wish to gawd it wasn't! I recently had to submit an official transcript for a professional designation, and I'd like to have a do-over for my sophomore year and first semester of my junior year! I can't speak for anybody else, but I wasn't mature enough at 19 to handle the bar scene and my transcript tells the story! I'm just thankful that I never hurt anybody and that I snapped out of it before I flunked out!

I'm now in my 40's and have children approaching high school, so my interest is in preventing them from making the same mistakes I did. 850 freshmen flunked out of EIU last year, and 80% of them cited alcohol as a factor in their leaving. If making access to alcohol more difficult would have helped a quarter of them, it's a process worthwhile!

[bmuff]

Completely agree. We have had hard enough times with those of age in the past keeping out of trouble in the campustown area. If the bar age is a big selling factor to a recruit I'm not sure I want someone that puts too much thought into that in the program.

Sorry, but I think that's a big selling point to almost ALL recruits. They care about having a social life and not just going someplace to study, play FB and sit in a dorm room for five years. Where do you go to have fun and meet women? A CLUB. No one says that they have to go get trashed, but in reality, ISU is lacking in things for the under 21 crowd to do except for getting drunk at house parties.

I wish that the uptight people who want to keep Ames in the 70's (Smart Growth etc) would let the town grow up.

[benjay]

Partying with friends is one of the best parts of the college lifestyle. It's not going away, and students who can't control their drinking are going to flunk out.

This is true on every campus in America, whether the bars are 18 or 21 or the house parties are always busted or never busted. It is the student's responsibility to control their binging.