A spokesman for the Ames Police Department cast his doubts last week on lowering the required age of Ames bar patrons.

The idea was proposed at a full meeting earlier this month of the Veishea task force. Members of working group 2, charged with determining the underlying causes of the April 18 riot, submitted a list containing potential reasons for the disturbance.

Among those reasons were alcohol restrictions affecting ISU students.

According to the report, these alcohol restrictions — such as regulations keeping underage drinkers out of bars and prohibitions against alcohol in residence halls — added to the growth of off-campus parties, one of the things believed to have sparked the riot.

Ames Police Cmdr. Jim Robinson said lowering the required age to allow people in bars — one of many initiatives being considered by the task force — would cause significant difficulties in enforcing laws against underage drinking.

“In my personal opinion, if you lower the age of people allowed in bars, you’ll have many more underage people drinking,” Robinson said. “Alcohol abuse is the No. 1 substance abuse in our community, and it rolls over into increased assaults, sexual assaults and vandalism.”

There is some credibility, Robinson said, to the assertion that regulations against alcohol in residence halls adds to the size of off-campus parties. But, he said, this was likely only one of several factors that played a role in the disturbance, and said he felt regulations against drinking were not too restrictive.

Task force members were asked to vote on which of working group 2’s findings they will focus on.

Working group 2 Chairman Steve Schainker said it was too early to tell if anything will come of the group’s suggestion to modify alcohol restrictions and enforcement.

Schainker, Ames city manager, said it was impossible to say whether the task force will choose to focus on these issues out of the many others supplied by the task force. He said group 2 had been split over which potential solutions were the best.

“Many times, a policy that you think will solve a problem will have unintended consequences,” Schainker said. “This needs a lot of discussion.”

The task force’s consideration of alcohol policies is given an extra dimension by recent events in Iowa City — where, for many years, underage people have been allowed in bars in hopes that it would draw drinkers away from house parties. Last year, however, the Iowa City City Council passed an ordinance that restricted this practice to 19- and 20-year-olds, who can be in the bar only until 10 p.m. The council reviewed and endorsed this policy in September, even while students objected that the measure was leading more underage drinkers to unsafe house parties.

Sgt. Brian Krei of the Iowa City Police said current regulations have not significantly affected the number of people arrested for underage possession of alcohol.

Krei said the current regulations allow more opportunities for underage people to drink.

“The opportunity is there for young people to have access to alcohol that they haven’t had before,” he said. “It’s easier when you’re sitting at a table with four or five people to get a glass of beer than to try and get alcohol with a fake ID.”

Krei said he wasn’t convinced lowering the legal age for people to be in bars would help prevent future disturbances like the riot.

“I don’t know that that would have an effect,” he said. “Was that the reason people rioted, because they couldn’t get into bars? I don’t think that it was.”