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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-07-11 Transcription July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 1 July 11, 2000 Special Work Session 7:00 PM Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Kanner, Wilburn, Pfab Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Winkelhake, Matthews Tapes: 00-72 SIDE 2; 00-75 SIDE 1 Lehman/The informal meeting but before we start and I don't think we've ever done this at an informal meeting, we have a special presentation. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Mr. Atkins birth and Steve I don't think there's anything that we could conceivably do or here tonight that will prevent you from going into a bar. Happy birthday. Atkins/Thanks. Pfab/Happy birthday. Atkins/Thanks. Lehman/Well as you folks know there has been a lot of discussion, articles in the paper, letters to the City Council, whatever regarding the abuse of alcohol primarily in the downtown area. We've talked about it on and off for a couple years. A number of different proposals have been looked at not officially but certainly circulated Council, we've seen what many many other communities have done both in the state of Iowa and throughout the country. The purpose of this meeting I believe is for us to hear from those folks who operate bars that the I guess your reaction to the problems that we have been inundated with as I'm sure you all know we've been approached by the County Health Department, by the University of Iowa, by a large number of parents both in the community and parents outside the community who have University students here. So tonight I'm going to ask the Council to take notes, listen, I'd like to run this pretty much the way we run a public hearing, each person that would like to address the Council should get up introduce yourself, sign in your name and address, try to limit your comments to five minutes. Now we have a lot more people here than 5 minutes are going to do but when you finish speaking and you wish to, and you haven't said all you need to say after everyone' s had an opportunity to speak you may speak for a second or third or fourth time whatever you'd like to do so. At this time I'd like to open it up for public discussion, anything that you would like to say relative to the problems that have been pretty well I think described in the newspapers and letters to Council are the topic for tonight so who would like to be first? Second is really easy, first is really hard. July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 2 Wilbum/So no decisions tonight, we'll. Lehman/I would encourage the Council not to engage in discussion with the folks in the audience but to take notes and really kind of let's get a, try to get a better feel for the situation at what these folks, what you perceive as the problem and what you perceive as the possible solution to it. Don Stalkfleet/I gave some correspondence to Marian Karr to hand out to you folks. It pretty much goes over what I'm going to talk about. Lehman/State your name first if you would. Stalkfleet/I'm sorry, Don Stalkfleet, 3105 Dubuque Street NE from the Sports Column. The first three pages are pretty much what I'm going to talk about, the second two pages are correspondence from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I think most people know that if there is a referendum for a prohibition they'd probably be the biggest contributor that that would be involved. And some of the facts that they came up with concerning underage drinking or binge drinking and some of the revenues that they found out through their study were effective and I've highligthed what' s in yellow there what I think is probably the most pertinence to what we want to talk about tonight. As you already know the coalition of the bars downtown didn't go very well, we had about a 50 percent participation, probably less than that and if you had taken the entire city we had maybe a 5 percent participation. So basically the balls in your court, nobody is going to stick together on anything, it's going to have to be legislated. I don't think I'm against the 21 year old law, but I am against what it's going to, what are the repercussions going to happen if you guys enact a 21 year old law. It's going to leave up to the discretion of whatever owner of whatever establishment wants to try to skirt those laws and how they can skirt it is by some creative financing or bookkeeping to find out if you sell a $4.00 gin and tonic is it going to cost you $3.50 for the ice and the tonic and $.50 for the gin, these things happen and they will happen. Cover charges are going to become a large part of it. And all of a sudden your going to find out that if you pass a 21 year old ordinance and it's going to be dictated that if your a restaurant you have more than 50 percent liquor or restaurant sells then you can have someone in your restaurant after 9:00 or 10:00 whichever you propose. But some of these bars I'm sure are going to be creative in their accounting and their going to say well I guess I'm going to have to charge more for my condiments than I am for the actual alcohol that's going to be there. And I think you also are opening yourself up legally as far as if there's other functions that go on around Iowa City and I highligthed some things about the Regina Fall Fun Festival where they go out there and their, they serve beer until midnight, and there's kids out there that are 14-15-16 years old, well we're going to have to cordon that off or are you going to have to make some specific needs for those type of events? If I go bowling am I going to have to have people that are not going to be able to drink while I'm bowling, I can't take my son down July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 3 there. I can't go have a pizza afterwards. 21 year old law is not a bad idea but if you don't cover all the bases, people are going to try to skirt the law and I think you're going to find that it's not going to have any teeth. And I think that's what they found out in at UNI where it didn't have any teeth so they simply just had to repeal it. It would seem to me that you people are coming after us and you should be going after the person who' s trying to obtain the alcohol, they need to be held responsible for breaking the law. They are the ones that are trying to obtain it, we're not trying, I know no bar downtown Iowa City that' s trying to serve minors, you may not think that that' s the truth but believe me it is. And after being in business for 17 years I'm not there to serve minors, but they're there and they're there with fake ID's and to try to hold us responsible for someone who is trying to obtain alcohol under age when they have the fake ID's seems to me like your shooting the messenger and it's not right. I think we need to make it less opportunist for people to drink. It's a fact that you can come downtown and you can drink excessively for very small amount of money. And I think we need to look at legislation that prohibits that. The advertising of it, the people that can go out and put all you can drink specials in with low price drinks and if we can legislate that where you can't charge less than a wholesale price, whatever factor that may be, it might be two or three times as much as we would pay for it. Now when you have a student that comes downtown with $15.00 in their pocket their going to obtain alcohol with their fake ID but by the time they try to get it, consume it, the nights going to be over, their going to have a chance to have two, or three or four, their going to be broke, their going to go home, your not going to chase them to the streets, your not going to chase them to private parties where there' s no supervision. I think Iowa City does a good job, tries to do a good job, we need some help. But 21 it's just going to make it a 2-headed monster and it's going to show up somewhere else. That's about it, I would recommend that you read the study from the Robert Wood Johnson Fotmdation and what they've found out and hopefully it will help with your decision. Thank you. Lehman/Thank you Don. Marcus Cook/Good evening, my name is Marcus Cook, I am the owner of the owner of the Alley Cat and a shareholder in the Parthenon Greek restaurant, 610 Iowa Avenue is my address. I could sit up here and refute and give all kinds of imperical data that could probably prove both sides of all argument but the real argument as far as I'm concerned is where will the patrons that are 19 and 20 and 18 years old go? I am in my early 20' s and I'm forumate enough to own a bar and I work hard at that but I am also your targeted audience in the crowd that your looking for but at the Alley Cat the crowd that we deal with is basically more alternative. And these people come into my bar, more than, they come in to dance, they come in to socialize, they come in to find out what's new in the community, they don't necessarily come in to drink, so as far as I'm concerned we provide entertainment. And my patrons are going to be forced to go elsewhere, not so much in a business standpoint but for the fact that they'll be driving to July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 4 Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, 35-40 miles away. And if that patron does decide to drink and get in their vehicle, I myself wouldn't feel very good about knowing they're on the road driving when I myself am on the road driving at 2:30 in the morning home from work, I don't want to deal with that. As far as restaurants are concerned and what Mr. Stalkfleet mentioned earlier, I think it's difficult for the community to understand that if at 10:00 in the evening after an Iowa basketball game you want to take your son or daugther to pizza or anywhere for that matter that does have a Class C liquor license or any liquor license for that matter, where can you eat? And some days I don't want to go to Burger King, I know their open late but I don't want to go there, I might want to go to Pagliai's, I might want to go to Sports Column and have a hamburger, anywhere, and you can't do that, and I'm not saying that I don't agree with legislation because I follow it and that's part of being a member of this community but the same token we need to look at the further problems that legislation like this has. I mean I know that in several cases in other cities that I've looked at, this law that was attempted in those communities have ended up increasing acts of vandalism, increasing acts of OWl or DUI which is what is considered in Illinois and I particularly aren't comfortable with that, I don't particularly for that, I think it's a responsibility and a privilege to have a liquor license and I think that if people that have a liquor license aren't able to follow along the rules that the City has that' s one thing, but to penalize children that come here to go the University of Iowa or Kirkwood or just here to live and tell them they can't go in and watch a basketball game or a football game in a place that specializes in this that has satellites and has video games and has things that they can do other than drinking then I think it's really a shame that their not able to do that because I think there comes a point when even a 19 year old needs to be looked at as an adult. And I don't think it's necessarily the bar owners fault that people are coming in to our establishments and giving liquor to the underage patron. I think that's, and I also agree with that statement, I think that also need to be addressed and I think penalties on that need to be stronger. But just to point fingers at the bars I don't necessarily think that's the answer to all the questions. I mean I've been asking for months now you know basically in the commissions that we've come up with that like Don Stalkfleet said that weren't very progressive nor really the word I'm looking for is not coming to me but were not very advantageous in our efforts, it doesn't seem that we're all working together. And I don't think that by doing this, by having these meetings, and basically by legislating that kids that are truly adults by you know statutes of America, I mean their adults, 18 years old they can vote, so (can't hear) they come into my bar and dance or play a pin ball game so I'm sorry if I've rambled but this is something I've been dealing with for a couple of months and worrying about my business so I hope we all come together and make a very good decision on the outcome of this, thank you. Lehman/Thank you. July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 5 Kate Newberg/My name is Kate Newberg, I have no affiliation with the bars, I'm speaking today strictly because I'm tired of policy makers making policy without all the facts. I've done research and a lot of what the Stepping Up Coalition has published and Robert Wood's Foundation has published is wrong, I mean, I have packets here that I can give to the City Council to look over but according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, data collected annually by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the percentage of students who use alcohol in the last 12 months is at it's lowest point at any time during the 17 years the data has been collected. And I just feel, I keep reading article after in the paper and they keep stating, I know one of them the Stepping Up Coalition has stated as 8 out of 10 Big 11 Universities have restrictions against 19 and 20 year olds being in bars. That's false, I've called every single Big 10 University and it's actually only 4 of 11. I'm speaking today, like I said I want to know that any decision is made, I don't care if it's you know, keep it at the same law, change it to 21 I just want to know the policy is actually being made not according to a special interest group who' s trying to push their way through and all the facts aren't being looked at. There are several other false and facts that have been given that have been refuted by very reputable sources, I have those here as well. As far as solutions go I read an article is actually according to a study by Michael Haynes who' s the coordinator of Health Enhancement Services at Northern Illinois University, the results of a program titled Alcohol Education Project, since it has began and been instilled at the Northem Illinois University and which was in 1991 when they instilled it. Binge drinking among students has gone down from 45 % in 1989 to only 24 % in 1998. Both Hobart and William Smith College and NIU have achieved their successes by using large scale media campaigns including informational posters, bus billboards and all screen savers on all campus computers. The gist of the article was they realized that you know by saying you have to be 21 to get into a bar it's not stopping people from drinking. I have other statistics that show starting as young as 4th and 5th graders 8 percent of them have already had a full can of beer to drink. By the time they've reached 6th grade that' s 15 percent of that population, by the time their 9th grade 70 percent have had at least one drink and 40 percent have reported having one in the last month with 20 percent having binged at least once and obviously you know from my own personal experience and I know a lot of people started drinking before college by the time they get to college even the Stepping Up has statistics that prove their 3 times as likely to keep their same drinking habits that they have when they come to college therefore it needs to be targeted starting at a younger age. I mean you need to have the parents of high school kids, elementary kids, you need to be getting it basically education, you need to teach if you are going to drink drink in moderation and have penalties for the abusive drinking. And that' s pretty much all I want to say I just wanted to make sure all sides of the issues are being heard today and it's not based on just some group that' s got paid $830,000 in a special grant and if you want these I can bring them to somebody. July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 6 Lehman/If you'd like to leave those things with our City Clerk she will see to it that we get copies of it. Dan Berry/I'm Dan Berry, I own Joe's Place, I live at 2905 Brookside Drive. Basically this problem isn't new and it's not just one problem, it's several problems. We have a problem with underage drinkers, we have a problem with binge drinkers and I'm not sure I agree with what Stepping Up and some people say are binge drinkers. They didn't put a time limit on it, they need to have a time limit on that so we know 5 drinks and how long is a binge drinker. Is it all day? You know it' s, I think people have been out on picnics and things and probably had 5 beers in maybe 6-7 hours, is that binge drinking? I think you need to have some rules and put down what you're talking about. But this problem we have has started a long time ago, it started when the age limit dropped to 19 and then dropped to 18 after that. At that time there was a great influx of bars, and at that time the bars, we needed an influx of bars to handle the people that were eligible to drink that were legal. Now they've cut back to 21 and all of a sudden we've got at least as many bars as we had when we had 18 as the age limit as we would do now and maybe more. And so this isn't a problem your going to solve in one day or two days, I mean it was a long time getting here and it's been here for a while so you've got some things to do. Now I think that if you check the record for Joe's you'll find out that we're probably one of the best on making sure that minors do not get in. We've been checked probably as often as anybody and they just do not find minors in there because we don't let them in, we don't let in under 21. So I think that you can do that, you can solve that problem if you, if the bar owners wanted so. And I know I'm going to make some people unhappy what I'm saying but this fault is not just the bar owners, the people who sit up here are partially to fault too. Not all of you because you haven't been here that long but this started with the City Council a long time. City Council would not go to the Legislature and talk for any changes in the law and so now you're saying well we can't change these because of what the state laws are, we can't make an ordinance because of the state law. I think you need to do a few things yourself and talk to the legislatures that are here, they're all running for election so they ought to be listening to you. One of the other things about binge drinking and that I think a lot of times we let people go to long in some of the bars, I think we're all guilty of it and I think that should be cut out. One of the big problems, $5.00 all you can drink, or 21 pitchers for $25.00 or whatever special you have two for one's, that irritates me personally when I go into a bar and ask for a beer and they give me two and I only wanted one. Most people will stay and drink that second one so you have to look at those things too on the specials and the way that things are being run in some of the bars. Thank you. Lehman/Thank you. Daryl Woodson/I'm Daryl Woodson, I own and operate The Sanctuary Restaurant and I guess next to Dan and maybe a couple of other people I've been doing this for July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 7 about as long as anybody 26 years now, something I was going to do for a couple of years. Little historic perspective if you'll excuse me for reading here but for one let's be realistic this is an article I'm reading. "Playwrights and columnists like to say bars are meaningful, they aren't people like to get drtmk, they like to chug 6 or 8 glasses of beer and stare at nowhere for hours in a state of speechless inebriation. In Iowa City police have been known to stroll into bars uninvited and check identification of everyone there just to make sure no one under 21 is being served. If a minor is discovered it's off with his head, the owner of the bar then gets put in the stocks for a few weeks, Iowa police are dead serious about Iowa drinking laws, and this makes bar owners serious about the Iowa laws too." This is the University of Iowa's Hawkeye yearbook from 1971. Binge drinking apparently existed then and the problem existed then. We did a little, some of us old folks did a little counting from this article and in downtown Iowa City at that time there were 15 bars. Right now in downtown Iowa City we counted 17, this includes the north side, we did leave out Linn Street Cafe and Devotay. But one of the differences is that most of those bars then were taverns, the menu was a bag of potato chips, some beer nuts and maybe you could get on the telephone and call for a pizza to be delivered. Now the majority actually have full food service, of course the big difference is at that time most of those were 20 bar stools and four booths, they didn't hold 800 people. The economics as Dan said has changed because the structure was built up with larger bars to accommodate larger crowds, larger bars do often serve food, but that can mitigate the effect of alcohol. Now these are things that you know we really don't have any control over, no more than we have control over retail stores leaving downtown Iowa City for Coral Ridge mall. But as far as the number of liquor licensees we are not hugely greater than we were in 1971 which was pre the change in the drinking age, in 71 it was 21, in 72 it went down. Did it go down to 19 first or 18 and then back up? I don't remember. Dan Berry/No it went down to 18. Woodson/Yea. Berry/And then when it started to go up (can't hear). Woodson/Right so, these problems are all long standing, the definition of binge drinking is recent from the Harvard Public Health study, and you know most of the information has come out from them and the Robert Wood Johnson has relied a lot on their work which you know can be refuted in various stages. Now first of all I think we need to identify what we're trying to attack, are we trying to attack underage drinking? Are we trying to attack binge drinking? Are we trying to attack vandalism? Or is it all three? And what can we do that would solve any one of those or all three? You know vandalism has been mentioned but I don't know if there' s any statistics to show from arrests or whatever that vandalism can be solved by raising the drinking age to 21. Are most of the vandals under 21 and July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 8 drunk? If so then raising the age to 21 for entrance to the bars would probably reduce that. Binge drinking certainly wouldn't be solved by making entrance to the bars 21. You've got to identify what problem you want to solve and try to find a solution to do that. I have a couple of ideas that may seem minor but you know in thinking about all this I haven't come up, and people I've talked to haven't come up with any better solutions than anybody else. Two things and the chief could probably address this, it use to be a number of years ago when I was involved with another establishment we'd contacted to find out if we could hire an off duty officer in uniform to serve employee by the bar as a door person on busy nights. That would certainly discourage somebody from walking up and showing their fake ID to an Iowa City police officer in uniform and would shift some of the cost of enforcement from the city to the owners of the establishments. At that time it was the policy of the department to not allow officers to work off duty in their uniform. I don't know ifthat's still the policy or not but you know but that's something that might be thought of. Another thing and if you, in some, especially resort areas that serve college students in the industry everybody's familiar with the plastic wrist bands. They are made out of a Tyvek a high tech plastic, their, you know, go around your wrist. You sometimes get them for admission to fairs or things like that, you may be familiar with these. A lot of places in resort areas will put those on the under 21 year olds, or they use to do the under 21 year olds to keep them from drinking. Of course their easily cut off with a pair of scissors. A bar that allowed under 21 's to come in but required the over age to wear that to get served and then only one drink per person, not can'ying two or three back to the table, not carrying a pitcher would be a way to reduce, not eliminate, but reduce the potential of alcohol getting into the hands of underage people in a mixed establishment. The other way that I've seen in some areas that have been done is to physically segregate within a building so that you had a bar area and drinks could not go out to the dance floor for instance. So you could have 19 year olds and 22 year olds on a date dancing but if the 22 year old wanted to drink, he had to physically into another room that the 19 year old wasn't allowed in. There are ways to do this that don't require the ban. They're not maybe all the best solutions and the most successful solutions but possibly maybe we should look at some of these things before we jump into a change in the admission of law. And as it was mentioned, our industry does some awfully creative accounting. Right now under Iowa law, one more quick thing, under Iowa law liquor liability insurance is based on the dollar volume on your alcohol sales. If I sell you a 12 ounce beer for $.50 1 pay a lot less than if I sell you a 12 ounce imported beer for $5.95. Because of that you see cover charges and drink specials because the cover charges don't count as liquor liability insurance even though they actually are often sales so, that will occur, it occurs now to reduce the liability for liquor insurance, it will occur unless you carefully craft any 21 year old law. Thanks. Lehman/Thanks Daryl. July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 9 Ryan Rooney/My name is Ryan Rooney and I'm with the Union Bar and Malone' s downtown Iowa City Entertainment. And I have this handout and some of the people out here have it as well. First of all I guess I'm here more to speak about the problem that I see as binge drinking. I don't think that Iowa City necessarily has that proportionally larger problem with underage drinking than any other community of it's kind. But I'm downtown almost every night and I definitely do see that there is a binge drinking problem and I think it's almost unfair to pin that solely on the bars. So if I could I'd like to go through this a little bit with all of you. First of all with teenagers drinking in junior high and high school, poor parental supervision, negative role models, and genetic alcoholic predisposition, they're all relative, they're all relative origins that we often inherent and we don't necessarily create. There's a problem before these kids get to us in some cases and we need to look at that before we again kind of blame it on all the liquor license establishments. I've kind of dividid it up into six entities that I think need to work together for us to realistically curve the binge drinking problem. First of all I think that as non premise licensee I have to be held accountable and realize my responsibility in part of the problem. It's tremendous competition in the bar business downtown and it's reflected in the price of drink specials and I think the price of drinks are one of the biggest problems that contribute to binge drinking. I think the University of Iowa needs to get involved, I think it's somewhat hypocritical that they take a stance against underage drinking then distribution 10,000 papers to students they know are underage at the front their dorm room reminding them how much it's going to cost to go out and get drank that night. I've spoken to Mary Sue Coleman's office and the director of Public Relations and they've refused to work with any of the bar coalition to eliminate alcohol pricing specials and advertising in the DI because they've signed a contract with the DI and it's a separate entity. In the back there I have a few articles and according to that same Harvard survey 51 percent of the respondents said that administration does not allow advertising alcohol in their student newspapers, yet for Iowa City, or the University of Iowa has not followed that majority. I think the Iowa City police department needs to get involved, I realize that your hands our tied in some of the legislative issues, you can't regulate all the issues that we need to deal with and part of them are going to have to be voluntary on our part. But I don't understand how if one rogue element of the bar community insists upon still doing 2 for 1 specials or all you can drink that that doesn't represent enough of a public health hazard that the uniform presence isn't there a little bit more than it would be that' s kind of conforming to some voluntary self imposed regulations on ourselves. I think if those bars had a little bit more of a police presence they might fall into line. Again I ask again the Iowa City Council to help us because like Donnie said earlier I was part of the group that tried to organize not running all the advertising and the binge drinking specials and everything like that. But unfortunately when other bars business' are down they exploit that and take advantage and found that a good time to advertise because they're the only ones on the page. Without you guys helping us by legislating certain things we really can't do much. I think that a lot of it, a lot of the problem doesn't get mentioned July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 10 or targeted is the off premise accounts, liquor stores, convenience stores, grocery stores. The out of site sales there, a keg might have 170 - 12 ounce bars in it, so you're selling one kid 170 bars and you have no way to regulate who's he's regulating that to. At least in a bar if people are properly marked their ID'd, their security, you have some control of that. I think the real danger lies in the liquor stores because it's always going to be cheaper no matter what specials the bars run to drink at a liquor store, and there's no way to control what happens to that liquor after it leaves the, after it leaves the store. I also ask that Stepping Up get more involved, I think one of the problems this community has is that it doesn't have enough things to do that don't involve drinking. There aren't enough nonalcoholic activities and I think going 21 would actually eliminate some of the few that are available to kids. I also ask that they resist the temptation to quit exaggerating the status of binge and underage drinking and to not skew facts and statistics so as to ask a raid and already tenuous situation. I think that they're distorting some of the facts that are being represented here and if you read in the back again taken from the Harvard Survey you'll see that binge drinking in the four categories is actually down in three of them. And in the last 6 years kids that are abstaining from alcohol completely is up almost 25 percent. I don't want to necessarily be argumentative, what I'd like to do is actually propose some things that the bar owners could do to regulate themselves. There are some things that you could do to help us with the binge drinking problem. I'll just sort of read through them. Lehman/You're going to have to read pretty quick. Rooney/OK. Lehman/And you may have to come back to finish this. Rooney/That's OK, you have them fight in front of you, we have 11 proposals, I'm not saying all of them have to be done and I'm not saying that they're necessarily reasonable for those establishments that don't let people under the age of 21 in but I would like you to consider some of those before you try to pass any legislation making it 21 only. Thank you. Lehman/Thank you Ryan. Gary Sanders/Hi my name is Gary Sanders, well so far in the first half hour we've heard Harvard Study criticized, we've heard of the problems with the sociological crises in the families and so forth that are creating all these problems and I don't think that either of those are relevant. I frankly don't care in the context of this discussion what causes kids to drink or if they get drunk or binge drink I don't think that' s what the issue should be before this body. The issue before this body is the laws being broken every single night of the week in this city. And what are you going to do about it? That's the question before this body. And for tax July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 11 money to have to go for the police to continue to do this job that I think the bar owners should be doing, I think is a waste of tax payer money and I think that they have better things to do and I also think that we're also just sitting on a powder keg as I've said before waiting for some crisis at 2:30 in the morning when there's a 1,000 to 1,500 people on the ped mall and we don't have the police capacity if you look at Iowa City, Coralville, Johnson County, the state police of what's available if a situation did get out of hand. So I would like to see this Council with all due respect not bother with the Harvard Study or anything else like it, your not going to solve the problems of drinking in this country. And I think it's unfair that anybody even asks you to, or that that has to be addressed before you address the legal issues. Let other folks work on causes of excessive drinking, let' s focus on the law and what you folks can do to keep that law. We all know whether there' s only two more bars downtown than 22 years ago or 23 years ago, that might be statistically true but quite obviously we've seen a seat change down there. I mean anybody that can see can see what's happened and the question is, is this a positive for this commtmity or a negative? That' s the question and what can we do about it? Thank you. Randy Larson/My name is Randy Larson, I live at 4 Longview Knoll just north of town, never once in my six years on the City Council did I ever speak for five minutes but just cut me off when it's time Emie and I'll quit. Lehman/OK. Larson/My background is sitting in your shoes for six years so I tend to look at things from your perspective a little bit, as a lawyer for the last 15 years I've not only defended literally thousands of drunk drivers, that' s about the biggest thing I do but I've also sued people for injuries in a drank driving accident trying to recover damages for those people that have been injured. And as a downtown business owner I am vitally interested in downtown, my business happens to be a restaurant that is about 70 percent of our revenue is food sales and frankly most of the other 30 percent is a pitcher of beer sold with a pizza but we do sell probably $600,000 or $700,000 worth of alcohol to people who are just in there to drink. Kanner/What business is that? Larson/This is the Airliner. When we bought it it was a 19 bar, frankly of their $600,000 annual revenue probably half of it was underage sales. The day we bought it we changed it to a 21 bar which meant we didn't have one customer, there just weren't any of age people that went to the Airliner, it was a great bar, it was an underage bar and you could drink all you wanted when you were underage just like most of the bars in town. I don't agree with those that say that there are bar owners that don't want to sell to minors I think there are a lot of bar owners that want to sell to minors. But I do think that the real issue for those bars that let in people under 21 is the cover charge that they usually can charge them. Now not July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 12 all bars do that but one of the things I think you have to recognize if you do a law like this is that very likely several businesses will go bankrupt. Now you may find that to be a good thing, you know there are a lot of people that think there are too many bars downtown, we need to reshape downtown and getting rid of some of the bars and restaurants would be a good thing, I don't know but I don't want you to make your decision and think oh it will just change things a little bit. It will be a huge change for certain bars and restaurants in my non-expert opinion. I don't think that would be the consequence to us but I want you to see all of my perspectives so you can judge my credibility. The law might be a good thing for the Ai~iner I don't know, we certainly have underage drinkers, we are one of only two businesses in town that use the electronic age verifier that you swipe the ID card through, it doesn't do anything for somebody that' s borrowed an ID, if they look enough like somebody and they have the items memorized they can get in with that fake ID. We're always going to have someone on a very very busy night that' s in there with a fake ID. That' s just part of the thing, we're not trying to serve those people, we frankly agree with those bar owners that say why do I want someone in there that's not legal when I can get full with legal people. But there's always going to be some of that, what I think has changed over the years is there are now bars that are taking in anywhere from ½ million dollars a year on up in cover charge from people that can not drink in their establishment. And they may be willing to have those people in there and not drinking at all because they're still making lots of money on those people. I think it's unrealistic as a city to believe that all those people are going to spend $5.00 to go in and not drink, they're going to find someone to give them a beer or they're going to find some way to drink. Now that may have been perceived as being a one side of the issue, I have to tell you it's my honest sincere belief that a 21 law will not only increase underage drinking but will increase unsafe drinking, I believe that sincerely because the underage people have a place to go where they can get it and have fun, and play pool and dance with their friends and frankly find someone to go home. If you pass a law where they can not get in without risking a fake ID charge which by the way costs them their driver's license for six months if they get caught, they will not drink somewhere else and I used to have this argument with Karen Kubby, she says let's make it difficult for people to drive downtown that will force them to walk and ride the bus and ride a bike. And I said no it will force them to go to some other place and I don't think, I think that's exact analogy is that by passing a law that makes it harder to drink downtown you may shave a few people out of drinking at all but a much larger I think are just going to drink somewhere else. And the somewhere else is a more dangerous place than a downtown bar. People do not die drinking at a downtown bar, they die in a private residence at a party, they die at a fraternity or sorority house, they do not that in that fashion very often under trained personnel supervision where there' s a police presence, where there is insurance in case there is a problem, and where there is peer pressure of other people that are not drinking in a destructive manner. So I want to reiterate I think there will be more unsafe drinking initially if you pass this law because there will be more private parties, there will be more unsupervised drinking. Now is it a July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 13 reasonable position to take as a city, the position that many jurisdictions have taken which is OK maybe we'll create some problems for us, maybe we need to devote more police to the neighborhoods, maybe we need to have other companion ordinances that deal with private parties. Maybe we need to step up our patrol of the streets so the drunk driving is not increased without being dealt with. That may be a realistic position to take to say we have a problem on any given night thousands of underage people in an environment where we can't insure that their not going to drink. Should we get rid of that problem and then deal with the other problems that flow from getting rid of that problem? The bigger parties in the neighborhoods, the more drinking in the dormitories, the more drinking in the Greek housing, the larger unsupervised drinking that's going to occur. I think it would reasonable to say let's deal with those problems that occur after we deal with this problem. I think you could decide that. One of the things I think makes a lot of sense is as long as the attractiveness of downtown stays the way it is for 19 and 20 and 21 year olds other initiatives, places that don't serve alcohol, parties that are alcohol, other businesses that try to attract people in for pizza that don't have a liquor license and therefore don't have a deadline for that person to go to after a sporting event. Those people have a hard time making it, and I think if Stepping Up has the attitude that we need the culture of that in Iowa City that you go downtown when you want to do something fun to do it would possibly give an opportunity for other ventures like that to survive where fight now they just can't compete. The last thing I would want to say I would believe in my opinion the alcohol law to be 18 or 19, I think if your an adult you ought to be able to drink, I think we should adapt as a community and as a culture and as a society more of the European model where we teach people to drink as youngsters, responsibly, maybe allowing them to drink beer and wine first not allowing them to drink hard liquor until later, I think that's the only way that you can cut down on what we ought to be cut down on which is unsafe drinking but I don't think that any piece of single legislation have is going to approach any of those kinds of things. Thank you for your time. Lehman/Thank you Randy. Lou Converse/Hi there, I'm, my name is Lou Converse, I live in Solon, Iowa a suburb there, I am the co-owner of the Field House Restaurant and Bar and of the College Street Billiards Club. I've been in the business about 4 years so I'm kind of a young pup compared to even my partner and Donnie and most of my time' s been in the restaurant business if you remember the A & W business that was mine for many years and we had the same problem with kids back then before the drinking age was lowered. The police like they, you mean the Coralville Drive-in they were in there all the time because that's where the kids were at and that's where they came up because they got in trouble and stuff and so I was used to handling kids and I thought this would be just about the same but it's been real difficult on me personally. My family is from Iowa City and my wife's family is from Iowa City. I read in the paper on certain days where either the police chief or a city July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 14 council person has almost called us bar owners evil, I'm not an evil person, if you know me, I'm not an evil person. You know I have interests just like anybody else, I love to fly a plane, I, you know, and everything, I'm not evil, I'm not out there to hurt people. I've come down personally and talked to Pat Hamey and asked him things like what can we do to do our job better you know. I've asked the policemen that come in our bar, what can we do to do our job better? Give us some input, I'll do just about anything that you ask me to do. I feel like at the Field House we give these people entertainment. Not all of them come in there to drink. And even there' s some people that get picked up in there for drinking under age, I'm not breaking the law. I don't like someone insinuating that I'm breaking the law, I didn't serve this guy the beer, he does it, my employees will be fired. On the bottom of our sheets at every restaurant it says $1,500 fine and loss of your job, we're very tenacious on stamping these people from keeping them away from alcohol. (END OF 00-72 SIDE 2) (Can't hear) Yet I've got this Stepping Up Committee telling me hey you're bunch of losers you know we've got a drinking problem you know. It just, you get in the paper and you read all this stuff and I'll tell you, you tell me what I need to do, I'm willing to work with anybody. You know the police come down and tell me what to do, we have classes all the time, you know I think a lot of may be that we need a standardized way of ID'ing people at every bar so they know how you know that maybe we've got to go wrist bands so that we know that everybody does it the same. It can get confusing if everybody uses different stamps and stamps then different ways and stuff like that so we can keep track of them. I think if you push them out of the bars you know and make it 21 that you will have a lot of premise drinking. A beer sales, off premise beer sales like the grocery stores and stuff have went up. On premise sales like in bars have went down. You know our beer sales aren't what they use to be but the ones at HyVee and the places where they sell the kegs are definitely up. And like I said, nobody's ever died in my bar, you know, I've never been arrested for selling alcohol to a minor, none of my staff have been arrested for serving alcohol to an under ager. You know and I just think it's unfair you know, we've had non alcohol event at the Field House, we've reached our hands out to the Stepping Up Committee and had a bit, you know, saying what can we do to work with you? Can we be on some of your committees? We never get contacted you know. I just think that you know we're a college town, we know our customers, our customers are college age people, they love to dance, not all of them drink. I'm going to tell you I've lived in Iowa City a long time and I drank in Iowa City back when it was 18 and I'll tell you these kids are more responsible drinkers now than they were my age. You know I'd get out, that was back when you could park right in from of the Field House jump in your car and go home. So anyway that's my little minute there. Lehman/Thanks Lou. July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 15 Dave Moore/All right I'll be the second half here my name is Dave Moore, I'm also half owner of the Field House and the new College Street Billiard Club and Deli. I've got a couple different things on this issue. I have a real problem with City Council and some of the members and they say that some of the reason downtown doesn't attract new businesses is because of all the drunks and the bars downtown. I think we have to take a reality check folks, juvenile delinquents smoking underage in the ped mall, harassing shoppers, throwing trash everywhere, bums drinking out of brown sacks in front of my pool hall with Whiskey bottles in them. The lack of easy and free convenient parking and garbage cans that are over flowing at 2:00 in the afternoon every Thursday, Friday and Saturday when I go to the bank. That' s some of the reason downtown has lost it. And we're not a retail shopping area anymore folks, we're an entertainment district and you guys need to understand this. I also want to touch upon something that everybody likes to talk about, the birthday specials downtown, Malone's does it, Jake's does it, and we do it. Here's why we do it and I'll tell you right now. We offer 10 pitchers for $10.00 for small groups of people that come in, we offer 21 pitchers for $21.00 for large groups that come in. The reason we do this has many reasons, we offer it from 8-10 PM only, the idea is to attract patrons who normally would have a pre downtown keg party, I did it when I was a kid. A friend of mine turned 21, turned 20, turned 22, we'd get a keg of beer drink it with 20 friends and go downtown and dance. Well as a bar owner I don't want to be at the door going whoa wait you guys are intoxicated go somewhere else OK so they go somewhere else, OK so they go across the street to another bar and they spend their money there, I'm shooting myself in the foot. So what do I do, I give them a free appetizer basket, a birthday t-shirt saying I celebrated my birthday at the Field House and I have supervision where my staff keeps an eye on them. And I talked at length with the County Attorney for two hours with Lou about this and at the end of that meeting he agreed and he said it's a good idea to have a 21 birthday party at the Field House to not let these kids have private parties. And he also agreed with me that keeping the age at 19 for admittance would be a good idea. He doesn't want to see 10,000 kids displaced all over town, now that came from the County Attorney himself so you might want to talk to him. We also allow soda pop to put in those pitchers and many times they are because the underage kids don't all want to drink. And sometimes we only sell 10 pitchers out of those 21 because we charge two pitchers on the card for Guinness or good beer which we call. Not all kids like to drink Bud light now days, they want the good stuff, they want Heineken or Bass Ale, or whatever and so those 21 pitchers or 10 pitchers sometimes are 6 or 11. And they also come back can we have some more cards? No, that's the special, you guys get your appetizers, if you want to stay here your paying full price, and most of them stay and have a good time. We have very few problems with underage parties at our birthday parties. Now a couple of ideas I have to solve the underage and binge drinking is nothing than different than anybody else has said here tonight, go to a standard 18 or 19 with wrist bands. Have the fire department come downtown and enforce crowd capacity of problem bars that July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 16 have all you can drink specials. And I think everybody knows who I'm talking about, they're a new bar in the ped mall that you guys approved to come to town. And they charge $5.00 from 8-close and you go in there and you drink as much as you can until you puke on yourself or piss yourself or whatever and then they come out and their a problem with me. I get kids with wrist bands on that try to get in my bar at midnight and I have to stand at the bar and say no your not coming in, then they go to the pool hall, and then I see them trying to get into Vito's, the Union, Martini's. We won't let them in, that is rogue operation that does their own thing and I don't think that the other downtown bars in the ped mall should be lumped in with that bad operator. You know he's not from Iowa City, he has no care about Iowa City except to make money and put it in a Wisconsin bank. We have a major investment downtown with our two businesses, we are choosing to be 21 and older after 10:00 at the pool hall because he's not a big place and we can survive with 21 year olds in there. The Field House is an entertainment center, we have pool, we have darts, video games, one of the best dance floors in Iowa. We've been written up in numerous magazines over the years, we are an entertainment complex for downtown Iowa City. We are the reason people stay in town on football weekends. If you guys have ever gone to Ames after a football game, people leave, there is no night life in Ames, there is no money being spent in Ames at the other stores around the bars and restaurants. People stay in Iowa City and fill up the hotels and motels because of the night life and entertainment district going on in downtown Iowa City. For 4 ½ years we've worked very hard trying to improve the image and the food at the Field House, for the first 3 years we've won best hot wings, and last year best overall food at Riverfest 2000. We entered our burger basket and our wings, we were #1. Now we're doing all we can and I guarantee you like some of the people said, no one has died in the Field House, no one has been stabbed in the Field House, no one's been raped in the Field House and if you folks want to pass a 21 law it's going to be on your conscious when there' s a big private party next year and there's a raping, or a stabbing or another death due to binge drinking because that stuff does not happen where there's security, where there' s insurance, where there's trained personnel with TIPS training and our staff doesn't want to get a $500.00 fine or a $1,500.00 fine or whatever it is to serve a minor. Lou and I don't want to be shut down for two weeks and be out of business, we take our job seriously, we're both locally born locally operated business and I think people have to remember that. Thank you. Lehman/Thank you Dave. Gary Sanders/Since most of the people have been bar owners tonight I'11, one minute, I was living here when a kid was killed in a bar, 1980, 1981 and it offends me. What was it 77? OK thanks. Another guys brother so it offends me when I hear over and over again that no one' s going to get killed in a bar and that it really just bothers me. Nobody knows what's going to happen if this law changes but the idea of this safer, and second of all if there's money to be made with underage July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 17 people in entertainment then somebody will do it. There' s a lot of underage people here they have a lot of discretionary income, some businesses will die because of this law, new ones will come about, that' s the nature of business. Thank you. Lehman/Anyone else who would like to address the Council? Go ahead Daryl. Daryl Woodson/I just have a question as there was talk about regulating the specials and prices, has there been research to see whether City can do that have we determined it's within our discretion. Eleanor Dilkes/There's been no direction to us to do that. Lehman/Daryl we really I think kind of scheduled this meeting as my personal perspective, there is no question there is a substantial amount of dnmkenness that occurs in downtown Iowa City, now we can pass the buck all we want to and we can blame who we want to blame. But the fact of the matter is kids are getting drunk downtown, some of them are overage some of them are underage, the problem is not perhaps so much underage drinking as this over drinking. It happens, it happens all the time, it's a situation that' s getting worse. We scheduled this meeting to listen to the bar owners, to hear what kind of response we would get, what kind of answers to whatever questions. Before we do anything, we've not considered any option, there are a lot of options that are available, I don't see us, we will schedule a work session sometime in the next probably month or six weeks, my personal feeling is that we probably will not do any discussion of anything that is will affect the customers of the bars without having those customers here. In other words after school starts, I don't see anything happening you know immediate nature. Woodson/I just didn't know. Lehman/I do think we are going to have to respond to an obvious problem that' s apparently is a lot more obvious to a lot of folks in the community than it is to some 0fthe folks sitting out here. Woodson/Well it's obviously downtown but you know this will affect all liquor licensees and I just didn't know where the formula, where the research was on these options that was (can't hear). Lehman/Haven't done anything, that's, we're talking to you guys first. Woodson/Yea, thank you. Lehman/Thank you. July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 18 Mike Porter/My name's Mike Porter from One-Eyed Jakes, I agree with a lot of what these guys have already said as far as the bar owners go. My place is a lot like a lot of theirs, just one idea for a solution or not necessarily a solution part of a solution. Now I brought my staff down here about 3 or 4 months ago and went through a TIPS training session with the City Council and the police officers, I think possibly that if the city mandated the bar employees to go through these TIPS program and maybe something more extensive than what TIPS does. I don't know if the police department can train people to train our people because I'll tell you what happened after my people went through that meeting was not only did they learn a lot but it just seemed to me they were a lot more diligent at what they were doing after they went to that meeting. Actually dealing with the police officers and having a police officers train my employees helped a lot. I know there are other college communities that have bar employees go through it so that' s just one possible part of the solution. Lehman/I think there are a many number of things that are available. Porter/Yea I just wanted to throw it out. Lehman/And we're not entertaining any of them yet but obviously that' s one. Randy Larson/Mr. Mayor, (can't hear) there are a couple things of specifics that I wanted mentioned, I think the hour that you chose to not let people in anymore that are under 21 is really important in this town. Some of the ordinances that we looked at on the Chamber of Commerce Task Force that I'm on were 5:00, or 6:00 or 7:00 at night, and I think that would really do damage to some legitimate businesses, not just ours but some people that depend on sales that have families or want to bring their college age children in. You know to me it would be ridiculous for a place like Givanni's to not be allowed to have a 21 year old college student come in with their parents or even just with their friends and have dinner and not consume any alcohol so to me a 9:00 or 10:00 range is what ought to be looked at. That can always be modified if you find out that it's sending a lot ofunderage kids in before 9:00 or something but I don't think it ought to be tied to whether you have food or not. I think it ought to just be a time thing not that there's anything wrong with forcing all the bars to ofl~r some food but I think that time is really one of the issues you have to look at. And I think most you know I don't talk much to the other bar owners by their choice probably more than mine but I think that almost all the bar owners would agree that they'd like to limit the bar specials. And I second everything Dave Moore said about Brothers and I'm not afraid to mention their name. They have not tried to be good citizens and they need to be called out about it and they started the $5.00 all you can drink thing and they're killing people and all you have to is walk by there at 11:00 at night and see bars that have been mainstays of this area with very much fewer customers than they have because they've resisted the temptation to have unfair and in my mind unsafe specials. We are a bar The Airliner that' s never had an all you can drink July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 19 special and a lot of the other bars downtown can say that. And there's a simple reason if you charge somebody a dollar figure and some bars on New Years Eve will charge $50.00 and you get all you want to drink, how do you tell somebody they have to stop after four drinks? You're just guaranteeing that most of the people in there are going to force you to break the law because of course the law you know prohibits someone beyond the point of intoxication. So if someone pays you $10.00 or $20.00 for all you can drink and your going to tell them four beers is all they get because now they're at .1, that's not going to happen so I think almost all the bar owners would be behind a proposal to limit the kinds of specials if it could be found to be constitutional and certainly other cities and states have done this and I know your legal staff can figure out if that can be done and model it upon statutes that have met scrutiny. Also I think the TIPS training which our staff goes through, there' s no reason that can't be made mandatory, this state has now made bouncer training mandatory, the TIPS training can be mandatory for all employees of restaurants and bars. Lehman/Anything that this Council discusses obviously will be public and there will be an opportunity for all of the public including the bar owners and whoever to have input whether we're talking about drink specials or whatever those will be public meetings and there will be an opportunity. Larson/I think it's important, excuse me, I think it's important that you not only ban the advertising of the special but the actual setting of the price itself because it's going to take the kids about 2 days to figure out where the specials are whether their advertised or not. Susie Spalj/Hi my name is Susie Spalj and I own and operate the bar called Shakespeare's on the east side of Iowa City and obviously this is a, this stuff is more targeted towards the downtown area but still I feel like it does have something to do with me as a bar owner being in Iowa City because I do have a huge clientele on my side of town, I have City High near me. We are 21, I guess we don't, we allow people under the age of 21 in with friends but my bar is very small, it's 2,000 square feet, you can see people wherever they're at and it's, my capacity is 0nly 120 people, never had that many people in there so it would be very hard to underage drink at my bar. But something that would affect it is I have a lot of families that come into my bar, high school students they get done with the sporting event, they come in with their parents to sit down and eat. If you went to a 21 only that would affect some of my night time business where I do have a lot of people that do come in with their parents and stuff. I don't have a lot of clientele that come in otherwise because you know it's not any fun to come in with your friend and stand there and they drink and you don't but I do have some people that do. We're very good about checking all of our ID's and I've only been in business a year but we've never had anyone underage in our bar. We do get checked but not as often as the downtown bars because we obviously are very far away from the downtown bar population. I do want to mention though I am an July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 20 Iowa City native, I've lived here my whole life. I went to City High, the University of Iowa, I graduated in 1990 and the time that I went to college it was 21 only, I wasn't allowed in the bars under 21 and I know at that time a lot of people did have keggars and stuff because you couldn't get into the bars and I feel like it was a very much a very unsafe environment to be in because they did not allow people in the bars under 21 and we did every thing we could to get fake ID's and everything else to get into the bars but I don't know back then in the late 80's early 90's you could go to the Field House once I did turn 21 it was like a place where 8:00 at night it was busy and it was jammed pack and you couldn't walk through there and I know the drinking has changed a lot and that I don't think it's as big a problem because you go down there now and it's 11:00 and a lot of the bars are not even enough full yet because kids are jus not drinking like they used to. I don't have any proof to back that up it's just my, you know I've lived here my whole life and then I know how the bar environment has changed by being in and out of them for quite a few years. There isn't a whole lot to do in this town if you're a younger person that isn't able to drink, that's something that's probably, I don't know if you can ever solve it but I would have to question how the law if it was changed how it's going to affect anyone you know. And that' s been mentioned also people like the bowling alley's they serve beer and my place, are you going to say nobody after 10:00, what happens when the game gets over at 11:30? Is it 11:00 or 11:30 then or is it only going to affect downtown and it's not going to affect outlying areas you know there' s a lot of questions on how that is going to work. And I'm not sure what else to say besides, there's always going to be a drinking problem, making it 21 isn't going to make it go away. Everybody you know, I don't know what to say except it is a problem and changing the age isn't going to make the problem go away it's just going to make it worse. Thanks. Lehman/Thank you. Rodney Anderson/I'm Rodney Anderson from Pancheros and I'm encouraged by some of the things that am said here tonight. Downtown is an entertainment center and a lot of us downtown do business because them are people downtown. If we take away a major portion of the people that are downtown in the evening and I'm not talking about 1:45 in the moming, I'm talking about 7:00 on we all get hurt. A lot of the comments tonight and criticisms have been aimed at Brothers and I think it's a good example to take a look at what was in that space before Brothers was there, why it was available, Hardee's couldn't make it downtown. I think many of the reasons it couldn't make it was because the downtown was changing and it couldn't could no longer be profitable there. For the, we've been in business for 8 years, and for the first 5 years we were in business it was my job to know what the college towns were like, what the night life was like, I've, any college town in the midwest I've been there or had a business there and studied it. Drinking as a few people have said has greatly diminished, I know there are a lot of statistics being thrown about that binge drinking is up but I'm encouraged that a couple people pointed out and I think it's clearly not the case but I think there's an over reaction July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 21 and a catching up of statistics with reality maybe in education of young people as to what binge drinking is but I don't think it's as big of a problem and I think the solution is coming naturally. I don't think we need to force the issue so my biggest suggestion is please consider all the businesses downtown that need that business from 7:00 on to be profitable. I know the Airliner is not going to sell as many pizzas with those pitchers of beer, if the crowd is dropped, cut in half or whatever it would be so I think we need to take a look at that and be careful not to harm the fragile downtown that it is. Thanks. Lehman/Thank you. Ryan Rooney/Sorry but I'd like to address you with at least some proposals and of the bars have had a pretty hard time getting together so I've never seen this many of us together so I'd kind of like to address them and maybe they can give me some feedback and tell me I'm idiot or agree with some of the things that we would propose and be willing to do instead of a 21 ordinance. First of all I think that every bar should be 19 years old, I know that does eliminate a few kids in college but it also keeps I would assume the majority of the high school kids out and I know nobody in this room wants high school in an environment that they really shouldn't be and with bars being 18, I know there are a lot of seniors in high school that are 18 years old and at least that would make them a lot, it would make it a lot more difficult for them so I think across the board it should go 19. And one of the biggest points I'd like to make is price is the only known and effective control device that regulates consumption. We kind of said it again and again but I think we have to be willing to pass legislation or do something about all you can drink specials in a certain amount of time. I have read some other laws in other states and cities where they have passed that legislation and I don't know ifthat's something that we can do here. I'd like to see the elimination of Happy Hour or 2 for 1 specials. Again like the gentleman said before if you only want one drink and they put another drink in front of you their basically encouraging you to have more than maybe what you necessarily wanted to. It also may affect the rate of your consumption causing you to drink faster so you don't want your beer to go flat or get warm or the ice to melt in a mixed drink. Maybe look into subdividing Iowa City into separate liquor districts and establish a limited number of licenses per district. Again TIPS certification being mandatory and training for all bartenders and servers, perhaps looking to a minimum price formula for alcohol sales so that no one can sell beer or liquor below wholesale costs, I don't know if you can have an automatic 200 or 300 percent mark up from your wholesale but that would be something to look into. Again wrist bands for 19 bars so that the patrons that are legal are clearly identified and it's easier for the law enforcement, the bartenders and the servers to identify those who are and are not of age. Discontinue ads that mention any drink specials or prices in the Daily Iowan, I think that's obviously a forum that' s targeted at under age and young people. Something for the off premise sales, anyone that wants to have more than 2 kegs at a party has to have a permit. Kids basically set up their own bars at their July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 22 house if they're throwing 4 or 5 kegs on a Saturday afiemoon at least that way the police or the City Council would be aware of where there's going to be a lot of alcohol distributed. And then again legal it, or limiting out of site sales, limiting how many drinks you can sell to an of age person to 1 or 2 so that it would discourage buying for underage people their friends that aren't of age. And finally I'd like to see us establish a coalition committee of the six groups that I mentioned earlier, I'd like to see maybe a representative from the City Council, the police department, the University, Stepping Up, the downtown bars and maybe even the off premise liquor stores and get together and meet on a regular basis and monitor some of the progress that the bars are making or at least have a dialogue where you kind of understand where I'm coming from, I understand where your coming from, and it's a little more personal but because I think that sometimes you look at or I know that Stepping Up members look at at what we do is this evil empire and when I've invited them to tour our bars before I think they've been very surprised at some of the measures we take against preventing underage and binge drinking and I think that would definitely create a healthy dialogue for all of us but thank you for your time again. Lehman/Thank you Ryan. Anyone else who would like to address Council? Aaron Brown/My name is Aaron Brown, I'm part of the management team at Shakespeare's and I just want to address the underage thing. I called and I talked to a police officer today, I found out that if I'm underage and I go to a bar I fined $50.00 plus court costs, $100.00 for second offense, $250.00 for the third offense. We all know that ifI serve an underage kid I'm going to be charged $1,500.00 and I believe firmly unless we put the onus on the underage drinkers that' s not going to solve any of the underage problems. Thank you. Lehman/Thank you. Ben Lustig/My name is Ben Lustig I'm a graduate student here at the University. I've been a binge drinker here in Iowa City for 8 years. Kanner/What's your name please. Ben Lustig/Ben Lustig. First of all I'd like if for once we can be honest about this. This isn't about binge drinking or (can't hear) or phalantropy or concern for the neighborhoods if parties move from downtown, this is strictly about money. The Field House, The Union, Vito's, Brothers, any bar that allows minors in will lose money if you pass an ordinance, that' s the bottom line. And I wish we could stop finger pointing, I do not defend Brothers but I remember a time not to long ago Mr. Larson on Wednesday's when the best special in town was flip night where you could get any drink at the Airline for $.25 so could we please stop the finger pointing. As a minor in this town I could not drink at the Deadwood, the Dublin, Joe's Place, the Foxhead or Tuck's Place because they carded people, they've July 11, 2000 Special Work Session Page 23 looked at the ID if it was fake they took it from you, they wouldn't let you in so I went to 19 and minor bars, I could get into Vito's, and the Yacht Club with a library card. If you knew someone at the door you and all your friends got in and you drank, it's that simple. Thank you. Lehman/Any other public comment? We would like to thank you folks for coming down, obviously we've had an opportunity to hear an hour and 20 minutes discussion, I think you can be assured we will schedule this topic for a future work session and anything that we do if we do anything will be, you'll all know about it and have an opportunity to comment on it. There are obviously options that we're aware of, we have some other options that some of you have told us about so keep talking to us we'll see what happens thank you Council. Any comment from any Council folks before we? Wilburn/Is it possible, some of the materials that have been printed up and handed out with suggestions is it possible, would Council agree to give direction to have, I mean I can (can't hear) are trader our jurisdiction. Marian Karr/What I plan on doing is because it is a work session what we get handouts at work sessions will appear for formal acceptance and in your packets on Friday, it will be on the next agenda as correspondence. Wilburn/That's good but the point I was getting at is I can guess which ones that I think are under our jurisdiction but others are if there are some Council members that wish to lobby our state legislature to try and make changes so that some of these other altematives that were presented just yes this is, this requires, this is under state, this is something we could do, would Council be willing to give Eleanor's office that direction? Lehman/(can't hear). Dilkes/OK. Lehman/I don't think that's, yea I think that would be easiest. Champion/It's a very good idea. Wilburn/Yea. Lehman/Thank you folks. Adjourned 8:20 PM.