Selling the repeal of Iowa City's bar-entry age ordinance

So, I was waiting in the dentist's office last week, watching a little daytime cable, when a commercial came on over the television. I pegged it right away as a political ad, what with the bold graphics and concerned sounding announcer.

“Vote ‘no' to big-money interests,” he said in a deep baritone voice-over. “Vote ‘yes' for our children.”

It wasn't until he told me to vote “yes” for “student safety” that I realized it was an anti-21 ad: a pitch to repeal Iowa City's ordinance that prohibits underage patrons in bars after 10 p.m. After all, both organized groups have chosen the buzzword “safety” in this round of debate.

But the ad made no mention of bars, or alcohol - anything to do with the issue at hand. Not surprising, I guess, given the slippery logic anti-21 groups have depended on all along to persuade people to support their cause.

Which is funny, because it should be easy to convince young citizens to vote themselves back into the bars; to convince older voters the bar-entry restriction is a rights issue, not a matter of public health.

That kind of strategy has worked here in the past.

Just the day before, I was in the Old Capitol Mall and walked by an early voting setup. I had time, so I got in line.

“Are you registered in Iowa?” a poll worker asked me. Yes, I told her. She breathed an audible sigh of relief.

The question of whether to repeal the 21-only ordinance has driven a lot of first-time voters to the polls. I'll bet a Four Loko most aren't voting to protect their safety.

But the rhetoric from anti-21 groups focuses almost entirely on vague boogeyman stories about how driving 19- and 20-year-olds from the bars is somehow putting them in danger.

Instead, consider the statistics: Since the ordinance has been in effect, there's been a significant drop in assaults, sexual assaults and alcohol-related crimes. Drunken driving arrests are down 22 percent.

The University of Iowa Hospitals report a 25 percent decrease in the number of alcohol-related emergency room visits by 18- to 22-year-olds from the same time last year.

If safety is your issue, the clear choice is to keep the ordinance as it stands - to vote “no.”

Which begs the question: Why build your whole campaign on safety when the evidence is so strongly weighted against you? Why not cut a commercial with the slogan: “19-year-olds in Bars: Because We Want To. Because We Can.”

In trying to fool us, anti-21 groups just look foolish. Or is that just the best they can do?

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net