Thirsty keg buyers trying to avoid registering their purchase with the county will soon have to drive a little further.

Just west of Ames, Boone County will adopt keg registration June 1. Keg registration will go into effect across Story County April 1.

The Story County ordinance requires keg buyers to disclose their names and addresses, which become available to law enforcement officers 12 hours after the sale.

Mike O’Brien, chairman of the Boone County Board of Supervisors, said the board was concerned with Story County residents crossing into Boone to buy unregistered kegs.

“That became obvious quickly,” he said. “We are an adjacent county.”

One place people could buy unregistered kegs is the Hy-Vee Food Store in Boone.

Chris Friesleben, communications specialist for Hy-Vee, Inc., said the company supports keg registration wherever it may be the law.

“We already take [customer] information for kegs so they can get their deposits back,” she said.

Friesleben said recording keg buyers’ information requires no extra work for Hy-Vee employees.

“We don’t think it is going to impede our system or lengthen the time it takes for someone to purchase a keg,” she said.

Few complaints were registered by Boone County residents about registering kegs, O’Brien said.

“We had only positive hearing from the community as far as the proposal was concerned,” he said. “We felt it was the right thing to do at the right time.”

Although underage people cannot buy kegs, O’Brien said he believed the law would help prevent drinking incidents.

“We want to make sure nobody gets hurt,” he said. “We know we can’t stop keggers from happening.”

New keg regulations

Beginning Saturday, Story County’s keg registration law will require:

anyone buying a keg to provide a photo ID with his or her name, address and identification number to the seller,

the seller to record the information in a log and place a sticker on the keg, enabling police to trace the keg buyer,

sellers to give the log to police, upon request, 12 hours after the keg sale and

the keg sticker not be tampered with prior to the keg’s return.

– Compiled from Daily staff reports