Students that plan to travel to Boone to buy kegs to avoid the keg registration ordinance passed by Story County, which takes effect in March, may find their efforts thwarted.

The Boone County Board of Supervisors is currently scheduling three public hearings on a keg registration ordinance similar to one recently passed in Story County.

Boone County Supervisor Mike O’Brien said their consideration of the ordinance is directly related to Story County’s action.

“With our proximity to Story County, there was concern that residents would slip over the line,” he said.

Boone County’s ordinance in its current form is the same as Story County’s, with one notable exception, said Boone County Attorney Jim Robbins.

“We do not have the provision that they have, where law enforcement must wait 12 hours before obtaining the records,” Robbins said.

The next step in the process will be to decide when public hearings will be held and publish the public notice in local media. The notice is tentatively scheduled to be released the week of March 6.

The process is expected to be smoother than in Story County, where the ordinance was first considered in February of 2005 and not passed until January of this year.

“I don’t anticipate it taking as long as Story County, but you never know,” O’Brien said.

The final form of the ordinance would depend on community input generated at the public hearings, O’Brien said. He said had heard “no real negative reactions so far.”

Chris Friesleben, communications specialist for Hy-Vee, said the proposed ordinance would have no effect on their business.

“We already take contact information for kegs, because we require a deposit. It would just be a matter of matching numbers to the information we already have,” she said.

Hy-Vee already operates under statewide registration laws in Nebraska and Minnesota.

“From our company’s perspective, we would welcome a state law so there is one uniform standard for everyone,” Friesleben said.

If approved, the ordinance would take effect 60 days after passage.

“I believe we are looking at a tentative June 1 start date,” Robbins said.

Recent consideration of a statewide keg registration by the Iowa Legislature would have no effect on the ordinance.