Iowa City may revise liquor license policies

The city of Iowa City is considering revising its liquor license regulations after bar owners successfully challenged part of the policy.

The City Council on Aug. 31 is to vote on a resolution that would rescind the city's policy of denying liquor licenses to establishments based solely on the ratio of customers under the legal drinking age cited by police for possessing alcohol.

Those citations are known as a PAULA, and for the past year the council has been turning down liquor license applications from establishments with PAULA rates greater than 1.0 per officer visit over the course of a year.

But an administrative law judge and the state's Alcoholic Beverages Division have said that policy is inconsistent with state law. In July, Stephen Larson, administrator of the Alcoholic Beverages Division, said the city failed to prove the underage patrons consumed alcohol or that bar employees failed to exercise reasonable care to determine if a patron consuming alcohol was of legal age.

The resolution now before the City Council removes the 1.0 PAULA-ratio trigger and instead makes PAULA citations one of several factors the Police Department would consider when making a recommendation to the council.

Police Chief Sam Hargadine said that some of those other factors, like sales of alcoholic beverages to an underage person, probably would carry more weight.

“Absent all other things, if they just have (a high number of) PAULAs, I don't think that would” result in a recommendation to deny, he said.

The new policy would essentially be the same as what was in place before, Hargadine said. That left few incentives for bars to try to keep alcohol out of the hands of people younger than 21, Hargadine said, but he noted some establishments still had their liquor licenses suspended for other reasons.

Looming over all of this is the city's new ordinance that bans people younger than 21 from being in bars after 10 p.m. Voters will decide Nov. 2 whether to keep that law on the books or repeal it.

Some city officials have said the PAULA-ratio policy may not be necessary with the 21-only law in effect.