Owner's unreal bar fight

No one can accuse Iowa City businessman Mike Porter of being a quitter.

In fact, it seems he'll try just about anything to keep ushering 19- and 20-year-olds into his bar.

The 40-something Porter has spent nearly half his life in the bar business, and nearly as long, it seems, fighting City Hall.

In 2001, he spearheaded a voter-registration drive and turnout effort - personally turning in about 1,400 absentee ballot requests in an attempt to unseat pro-21 City Council incumbents. In 2007, his businesses ponied up more than $10,000 to help defeat the 21-only issue at the polls.

Since the tide has turned in favor of 21, he's pulled out more tricks. My favorite - back in May, he tried to convince council members the 21-only ordinance violates his underage customers' civil rights.

When council voted to raise the bar-entry age despite his opposition, Porter told a reporter: “They might accomplish it for two or three months, and then it will get overturned, and it's going to be an enormous waste of taxpayer money and resources.”

He should know.

I don't like to even think how much of my tax money already has been spent fending Porter off in court.

In 2008, when the city fire chief asked the council not to renew Porter's liquor license for another bar, One-Eyed Jakes, because of ongoing fire code violations, Porter said the city was out to get him and took it to court.

Last winter, when the council denied Porter's application to renew the Summit's liquor license because police had cited an average of nearly two underage people for possession of alcohol there every time they walked in, Porter didn't just appeal the decision like other bar owners. He sued.

Now, he's filed a lawsuit because the city denied his application for an exception to 21 for the Summit, which he says made 50.04 percent of its money from sales other than alcohol in 2008.

The city, using the same figures, determined that number to be 42.99 percent. Porter says its denial is just a thinly veiled attempt to run him out of business.

It's the same old argument he's used all along. Never mind that his stairway was too narrow, that his heat detectors needed replacement, that the Summit had the highest PAULA rate in the city at the time - it's all a vendetta.

For years, Porter's called citing 19- and 20-year-olds for underage drinking a waste of time and money, has called fighting underage drinking “unrealistic.”

Unrealistic. Now that rings a bell.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@gazcomm.com