Category: alcohol

Neo-Prohibitionist Wants Your Rum and Cola

Our governing leaders always seem to be concerned that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying their life, especially if they’re enjoying it in a way that doesn’t involve taxpayer-funded frisbee golf courses or ice skating rinks.  As a case in point, Iowa Freedom Report’s Steve Hoodjer reports that one legislative teetotaler, Iowa state Senator Brian Schoenjahn (D-Arlington), has proposed a ban on the “dangerous” practice of mixing alcohol and caffeinated substances (like pop or coffee).

According to Hoodjer: 

Simple possession of such drinks would land a person in jail for 30 days and bartenders who mix caffeinated cocktails would cost their employers their liquor licenses permanently. It is not clear whether the Senator introduced the measure as a means of increasing unemployment in the entertainment sector or if he is merely looking to drive up prison populations in an effort to stave off cutbacks in criminal justice spending.

Hoodjer also quotes Reason magazine’s Hit and Run blog that also picked up on the story:

[The bill] apparently applies not only to drinks with a noticeable caffeine kick but also to coffee-flavored liqueurs with detectable amounts of the stimulant, such as Kahlua or Tia Maria, and any cocktails made with them, such as a Black Russian or a Mudslide. In addition to jail time and fines, violators would face revocation (not just suspension) of their liquor licenses, and therefore loss of their livelihoods—a pretty harsh penalty for following the instructions in a Mr. Boston book.

Although Schoenjahn, the latter-day Elliot Ness who proposed the ban, is a Democrat, Hoodjer worries that the bill could make it out of committee “if nanny-state Republicans cross the aisle to support it[.]”  If this legislative buzzkill does pass, it will no doubt be followed, at some point, by the formation of yet another blue-ribbon panel of state hand-wringers who will spend my tax money to try to figure out why young adults flee Iowa in droves.  It’s enough to drive a man to drink!

Iowa City Targets Freedom of Movement

At a time when liberals around the country are criticizing Arizona’s new immigration law as encouraging discrimination and criticizing Rand Paul’s rhetorical questioning of the federal governments authority to ban discrimination by private businesses, liberals on the Iowa City council are making such discrimination mandatory. The new city ordinance bans members of a certain “lesser class” of adult legal-citizens from entering some private business establishments while allowing members of a more privileged class of citizens to enter those same businesses. So much for the supposedly “liberal” principles of fairness and equality.

The new ordinance states that anyone under 21 is barred from being in drinking establishments after 10 p.m. The problem is that people over 18 are legally adults. This is a curfew for adult Americans, restricting their rights to freedom of movement, peaceable assembly, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble[,]” even in bars. The Ninth Amendment serves notice that the people have rights too numerous to be listed. It reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The people (even young adults) can do whatever they want, so long as they don’t harm others.

Article I, Sec. 1 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states: “All men and women are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights–among which are those of enjoying […] liberty […] and pursuing and obtaining […] happiness.” [Emphasis added.] The Iowa City ordinance does not treat its young citizens as “free and equal” and infringes their rights of “enjoying liberty” and “pursuing happiness.”

By the way, “liberty” is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary thusly: “1 : the quality or state of being free: a : the power to do as one pleases b : freedom from physical restraint c : freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e : the power of choice.” [Emphasis added.]

Although I don’t put much stock in the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Iowa City liberals generally do and it is now taught in our schools with more enthusiasm than the U.S. Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration states: “Everyone has the right to […] liberty[.]”

Other provisions include: Article 13: “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement[.]” Article 20: “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.” Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure[.]” Article 27: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community[.]” The Iowa City ordinance violates even this, the liberals’ sacred screed.

University of Iowa (UI) students and local business owners collected thousands of signatures for a petition to put the new ordinance up for a vote by the people on the November ballot. Unfortunately, city hall invalidated fully 60% of those signatures, putting the petition well below the legally-required number of signatures to allow a vote. Since many of the signers of the petition were college students and first-time voters, they didn’t appear on the city clerks voter list, so the ordinance stands. (Signature collecting efforts are still underway.)

This law is only the latest onerous effort by the Iowa City council to curb drinking in its city, especially by under-age college students. What results have their previous efforts yielded? A new report shows that alcohol-related offenses at UI rose 53% last year, even though a UI police official said they had “not significantly increased alcohol-related enforcement.” Drunk driving citations at UI shot up 97% last year!

So, when this latest effort also fails to reduce drinking, the city council and UI will have to come up with even more restrictions upon the liberty of young adults between 18 and 20, as well as local business owners. Who knows what atrocities await as Iowa City seeks a “final solution” to its “young-adult problem.”

Commission Says: "Regulate, Don’t Ban Everclear"

In my post Everclear and Present Danger I wrote that the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Commission was mulling over whether to ban or increase regulations on the sale of highly concentrated alcohol (HCA), such as Everclear, after a Drake University student was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning from overindulging on it. Thursday the commission announced its recommendations. Although they did not recommend an outright ban on HCA, their recommendations can hardly be seen as a victory for those who support freedom of choice for Iowa consumers.

IABC’s website lists the commission’s four recommendations as follows:

  1. Limit products over 100 proof to one listed size [750 ml for Everclear]
  2. Look into drafting a rule to require registration (similar to pseudoephedrine) for products over 100 proof
  3. Education – investigate opportunities for education on HCA in college communities, as well as design educational materials to be applied to bottles for distribution.
  4. Limit products to no higher than 151 proof

Since the recommendations all increase government regulation, no doubt they will be pencil-whipped through and adopted quickly. (In contrast, any deregulation would require an uphill, tooth and nail battle.)

Supporters of regulating Everclear and other HCA’s no doubt would argue that the state has a compelling interest in doing so since the state often has to assist those who injure themselves or others or ruin their own lives abusing the stuff. That is another perfect example of how government “assistance” always begets government intrusion into our lives. (In order to get rid of the intrusion, we must get rid of the assistance as well.)

Another troubling aspect of such regulation, if we follow the government’s logic to its ultimate conclusion: If the state of Iowa can’t trust its adult citizens with such a mundane decision as what size bottle of booze to buy, how can they trust us with self-governance, arms bearing, child rearing or any other activity upon which a free society depends?

Everclear and Present Danger

In its never-ending quest to keep its citizens safe from their own actions, by treating them all like idiot children, the state of Iowa is investigating whether to ban or severely regulate the sale of Everclear, a highly concentrated alcohol (HCA) beverage. In other states Everclear is available up to 95% alcohol (190 proof), but last year Iowa officials limited Everclear sold in this state to 75.5% alcohol (151 proof).

The Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Commission recently held a meeting at Drake University to hear public opinion on the topic. In November 2009 a Drake student was rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning after consuming copious amounts of Everclear, creating the massive debate about the drink in Iowa. Since one young college punk got sick on the stuff, obviously the state needs to make new regulations to restrict the freedom of three million other Iowans. After all, it wasn’t that kid’s fault, the other kids “made” him do it.

Holding its hearing at any college campus, much less one recently rocked by the near-death of one of its students, is probably not the best place to hear dispassionate and well-reasoned arguments calling for government restraint. The Commission probably doesn’t want to hear those anyway.

If you would like the Commission to hear some, you can email comments on the topic to dusold@iowaabd and read public comments for and against increased regulation of HCA’s at the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Commission’s website.

Happy Hour Cancelled- Miserable Hour Starts at Five

No doubt many denizens of Iowa’s bastion of liberalism, Iowa City, are rooting in favor of gay marriage in the Varnum v. Brien case now before the Iowa Supreme Court. Unfortunately liberals, just like conservatives, seek to expand freedom for their chosen groups while seeking to restrict it for others. Iowa City officials are currently advancing their jihad against alcohol drinkers in general and bar owners in particular.

Facing a “crisis” of binge drinking because of all the young folks attending University of Iowa, city officials are pushing for an ordinance to end drink specials such as the age-old “happy hour” wherein drinks are cheaper. Iowa City Mayor Regenia Bailey said, “Our objective … is to reduce price specials and pricing that encourage excessive drinking,” reported the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Wednesday. Iowa City already bans two drinks for the price of one and all-you-can-drink specials. Not happy with just throttling bar owners in their own town, city officials are also leaning on the state legislature for a similar state-wide ban.

Gazette columnist Todd Dorman, on his blog, predicts that at least the statewide ban faces bleak prospects in the Iowa legislature this time around. Since the legislature has spent the last couple of years doing everything except waterboarding bar owners, Dorman states that legislators may be reluctant to give the businesses “another kick in the shorts.” A similar ban failed in the Iowa Legislature in 1997.

No doubt the city ordinance will go through however. And when it comes to pushing for laws to make us Iowans healthier (and less free), the liberals are a tenacious bunch. Iowa City was one of the first to ban smoking and started the trend that is now a state-wide ban. We can expect to see similar bans on drink specials introduced every year until they get their way.

As I see it there are three primary reasons to oppose this ban.

Firstly, it impedes the right of business owners to run their businesses as they see fit and the rights of patrons as well. Bar owners already must navigate a labyrinthine set of government regulations, zoning laws and licensing procedures. They don’t need more red tape and more potential fines.

For bar patrons, the ban restricts their right to live their lives as they see fit, even if that involves getting plastered. Raising prices to control people’s choices is just paternalistic government overreach. As long as patrons are of legal drinking age, aren’t causing problems or getting behind the wheel of a car, it’s no one’s damned business if they drink too much. Legal drinkers might want to use one of the liberals’ own favorite catchphrases against them: “My body, my choice!”

Secondly, this is an unnecessary infringement on the private market. (This might just be another way of stating my first objection.) Many folks like myself belief that the government shouldn’t interfere in the market unless there is some coercive or non-consensual activity involved, such as fraud or theft. If bar owners were holding guns to the heads of patrons, forcing them to drink excessively, the government should get involved.

Bureaucrats should not be controlling the prices for drinks or any other consumer product, the market can set prices just fine. Looking at their balance sheets, bar owners will set drink prices appropriately low to get people in the door, but high enough to turn a profit. Since politicians from Iowa City to Des Moines to D.C. don’t seem to mind meddling in the free market, this argument is probably a lost cause.

Lastly, the ban probably won’t help much. If you chase binge drinkers out of the bars, they’ll just drink elsewhere, probably in less structured environments. That’s if it chases them out at all. I know that in my wild and woolly younger days, my buddies and I didn’t pay any mind to drink prices. The only thing that mattered was when our wallet was finally empty. Even if it did work, any slight reductions in binge drinking would not justify the first two intrusions in personal liberty.

I hope this ban doesn’t go state-wide. First the people controllers went after the smokers. Now it’s the drinkers. Next it will be sin taxes on junk food or God knows what else. That’s when I might have to put down my bag of pork rinds and fight!

Should the Drinking Age Be Re-Examined?

On August 19th the Associated Press reported that University of Iowa President Sally Mason announced that “she won’t support an initiative to study lowering the drinking age.” This plan, called the Amethyst Initiative, already has the support of 129 chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges from across the country, who hope to stem binge drinking by young adults.

According to the Amethyst Initiative’s website the group “supports informed and unimpeded debate on the 21 year-old drinking age. Amethyst Initiative presidents and chancellors call upon elected officials to weigh all the consequences of current alcohol policies and to invite new ideas on how best to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol use.”

One of the “current alcohol policies” referred to is the 1984 “National Minimum Drinking Age Act” which withholds 10% of federal highway funds from any state that sets its drinking age lower than 21. This flies in the face of 10th Amendment federalism, the idea that jobs not specifically assigned to the U.S. government by the Constitution belong to the individual states and to the people themselves. Regardless of what the drinking age should be, it’s really not the federal government’s call. [Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr addresses this very issue in his August 22 press release, which I read after I finished writing this post.]

It should be noted that signatories of the Amethyst Initiative don’t necessarily support lowering the drinking age, just “informed and unimpeded debate” about it. That makes President Mason’s refusal to sign even more puzzling. What head of a research university dedicated to the pursuit of intellectual truth could be opposed to THAT?

According to the AP article, President Mason says that she wouldn’t support the initiative because 19- and 20-year-olds can enter Iowa City bars and many underage patrons are drinking alcohol and getting drunk. What head of an institution with the previously mentioned attributes would use anecdotal evidence like that to justify unquestioning acceptance of an arbitrary (and arguably unconstitutional) national law. Even if her evidence wasn’t anecdotal, I can’t follow her logic that noncompliance with the current law is proof positive of its effectiveness and necessity. Of course I’m not as well educated as she is.

With or without President Mason, there seems to be growing interest in revisiting the drinking age debate. This is probably partially fueled by the ongoing war in Iraq. Most people see the inherent unfairness of sending legal-adults away to fight in dangerous foreign lands but denying them the ability to enjoy a cold beer if they make it home alive.

This has led several states to discuss allowing young adults serving in the military to drink before they turn 21. Another novel idea that’s been proposed would allow 18 year-olds to apply for a state-issued “drinking permit.” Any infraction by the permit holder would result in the permit immediately being revoked, leaving the young adult high and dry until he or she becomes 21. That would seem to be a good compromise between those who support lowering the drinking age and those who don’t. I know that if I’d have had a “license to drink” when I was 18, I would have jumped through all kinds of hoops to keep it.

Would it work? I don’t know. The point is, new and inventive ideas like these will never even be explored so long as the federal government tries to maintain its chokehold on the innovation of our nation’s 50 laboratories of democracy, the states. As long as leaders like President Mason unthinkingly support the status quo, the federal government has little incentive to release its death grip.