Ames Police officers and university officials discussed Friday the potential risks and benefits of alcohol policies with representatives from college campuses around the country.

Lynn Walding, State of Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division administrator, co-hosted a session during the last day of the National Summit on Preventing Civil Disturbances in the Cardinal Room of the Memorial Union.

Walding advised officers and university officials to create clear channels of communication to ensure effective education programs are matched by effective law enforcement programs.

He also advised city officials of the environmental changes within university communities, citing Iowa City’s role of host to marketers targeting students and bar promotions that contribute to excessive drinking.

Officers addressed specific, municipal policies that have assisted their own agencies.

Champaign, Ill., Police Lt. Holly Nearing said allowing 19- and 20-year-olds into bars has been a positive experience for police, a policy that generates more than $250,000 in revenue for the city from underage drinking fines.

“A lot of that money goes back into compliance checks and street sweeps, to pay overtime to officers who work the bars,” she said.

The money typically doesn’t go toward prevention or education programs, but since it mainly comes from students, it does get back to students in the form of safety patrols, she said.

Lowering the entry age also created a controlled environment for officers to monitor and shift drinkers away from house parties, Nearing said.

“House parties are not a problem in Champaign-Urbana,” she said. “We have a vibrant downtown bar area to compete with the campus town, so we’re large enough to accommodate both.”

Linda Langford, one of Thursday’s keynote speakers and associate director for the Center for College Health and Safety in Newton, Mass., warned about the risks of lowering the entry age.

“Greater accessibility increases underage drinkers, so allowing them into the bars would increase the potential,” she said. “Nineteen-and-over bars could facilitate the problem.”

Ames Police Sgt. Rory Echer was skeptical that a lower entry age into bars would solve the city’s problem of house parties because most of the large house parties police respond to grow after the bars close.

Echer said enforcing new policies could be a problem.

“We don’t have the staffing to be in the bars right now and I don’t think bars have the staffing to intercede,” he said.

Discussion also focused on preventative policies similar to Story County’s proposed keg ordinance.

Donell Young, coordinator for the office of judicial services at the University of Missouri, said students found ways around the tagged kegs and Linda Major, director of student involvement at the University of Nebraska, said wholesalers reported a shift in profits from keg beer to case beer after similar law was implemented.

“You should not look at a keg regulation without looking at a quantity regulation too,” she said.

Nearing said the student party patrol at the University of Illinois act as the first-responders, working as officers’ eyes and ears at large parties.

Ames Police were commended by students and ISU officials alike for their party response team tactics which, Echer said, gives the option for hosts to call officers if their party is getting out of control.

“We’ll help them break it up without citing the attendant,” he said.