IC Council Won't Abolish Drink Specials

By Mark Geary, Reporter

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By Mark Geary

Story Created: Jan 5, 2009 at 9:17 PM CST

Story Updated: Jan 5, 2009 at 10:19 PM CST

IOWA CITY – Drink specials in Iowa City are not in danger of disappearing...at least for the time being.

Monday night, city council members decided against a proposal limiting what kinds of specials bars can offer their patrons.

City council members said it would be an administrative nightmare to regulate what kinds of specials bars can run on their alcohol.

Alcohol flows freely in Iowa City just about every weekend students are in town. Since there are so many bars to choose from, many try to attract customers with low prices and drink specials.

Many bar owners opposed any plan to limit drink specials. They said those kinds of limitations were unfair and could potentially hurt their business.

“To say that you can have no specials, you cannot advertise your alcohol in any sort of way, I think is possibly getting into some constitutional issues,” Bo James bar owner Leah Cohen said.

Even if the council had decided to move forward with new price restrictions, bartenders aren't sure if that would actually cut down on binge drinking.

"People are going to drink what they want to drink and how much they want to drink. I think you have to just realize that and monitor it,” Saloon bartender Justin Orlowski said.

If a bartender thinks someone has had too much to drink, they can choose to stop serving that person. Bar owners questioned sweeping rules about price limitations because they say only a few bars have binge drinking problems.

"Rather than taking care of them and enforcing laws with them, they're trying to blanket it across everyone else. So, everyone pays a price,” Cohen said.

Council members seem to agree with that logic because they have decided to abandon any more discussion about price specials in the near future.

However, the council will move forward with more discussion about cracking down on underage drinking by penalizing bars with a lot of violations.

There's also some talk of limiting the amount of new bars that can open in certain areas.

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