Bar arrests down in Iowa City, but underage public intox arrests up

The number of underage people arrested in Iowa City for illegally being in a bar dropped 69 percent last year from 2010, according to new annual arrest statistics.

But the number of arrests for underage public intoxication, use of a fake or altered identification and operating while intoxicated rose in 2011 over 2010, and officials say the verdict is out on what the ups and downs mean.

“It's hard to establish a trend from just one year,” said Iowa City police Sgt. Denise Brotherton, adding that there are numerous factors that can cause numbers to rise or fall from one year to the next.

“Factors that can affect it include manpower and enforcement efforts,” she said. “It depends on who you have working the shifts and what else you have going on.”

Iowa City officers in 2010 arrested 163 underage patrons for illegally being in a bar - a number that included violators caught before and after the Iowa City Council enacted a law in June 2010 prohibiting everyone under the legal drinking age of 21 from being in a bar after 10 p.m.

The number of underage patrons arrested for illegally being in a bar dropped to 51 last year, according to the new annual statistics, and Brotherton said the decrease might indicate movement toward a shift in the community's drinking culture.

“Now people know it's serious, and they know we are going to ticket them,” Brotherton said. “It's not just an ordinance that was put on the books that they know we will ignore.”

Underage consumers historically have come from out of town to get into Iowa City's bars, and Brotherton said many underage patrons have realized that's no longer an option and have quit trying.

“The word got out that it's 21 here,” Brotherton said.

Most establishment owners also have come into strict compliance in the last year, she said, helping to drive down arrest totals.

“Where the numbers were high at first, we got some controls put in place and they changed some business practices and did whatever it took,” Brotherton said. “They don't want underage people in their business either.”

Counter to the drop in underage bar arrests, Iowa City last year saw a rise in arrests for underage public intoxication, OWI and use or possession of a fake or altered identification, according to the police statistics.

Officers made 156 arrests for fake ID-related charges in 2011, up from 111 in 2010. Brotherton said the increase might be due to a rise in the number of people buying true fake ID's off the Internet instead of just misusing legitimate driver's licenses.

“That might get you passed the bar employees - they do look good,” Brotherton said. “But what we can do is run them through the state and find out that they are completely fictitious.”

Possession of a fake ID is a more serious charge than possession of an altered ID or unlawful use of a driver's license.

“You are going to have some serious consequences,” Brotherton said.

Iowa City officers made 495 underage arrests for public intoxication in 2011, up from 285 in 2010. And police made 452 OWI arrests last year compared with 319 in 2010. Despite those increases, officials say it's difficult to draw conclusions because the 2010 numbers are an apparent anomaly, with arrest totals in 2009 and 2008 more on par with the 2011 numbers.

“We want to dive into that data and see what we can learn,” said Kelly Bender, community harm reduction initiatives coordinator for the University of Iowa's Partnership for Alcohol Safety. “We want to know, if we can find out, where most of that drinking is happening. If it's not happening at the bars, then doing interventions with the bars isn't going to help.”

Bender said her group tracks statistics from both Iowa City and UI police departments, and they have found some encouraging trends including a 16 percent decrease in alcohol-related emergency room visits for UI students and an 10 percent decrease in total public intoxication arrests from 2009 to 2011.

“But this is one of those culture changes that is going to take a lot of time,” Bender said.