More people tailgating at football games and a recent law enforcement initiative have led to an increase in liquor law violations over the past four years, according to police records.

The number of liquor law offenses rose from 138 in 1999 to 361 in 2002.

However, proactive policing and early intervention is helping to curb the numbers, said ISU and Ames police officials.

Jerry Stewart, director of the Department of Public Safety, said football games are in part responsible for the higher number of charges filed.

“There are not more officers at the tailgate lots, but the officers are ticketing earlier in the day,” Stewart said, which is a result of the department stressing early intervention the past two years.

Stewart said in the past couple years there has been an increase in tailgating that reflects the increase in violations. However, all types of venues affect the liquor law violations, he said.

“[We also see violations at] concerts [and] complaints received from residence hall students and officials,” he said.

Stewart said his hope with early intervention is that other crimes which correlate to alcohol abuse will decrease.

“The department has placed an emphasis on early intervention to deter more serious crime from occurring,” he said.

Stewart said officers have seen a high correlation between alcohol abuse and other crimes, including criminal mischief, burglary, assault, sexual abuse and theft.

Ames Police Cmdr. Jim Robinson said he believes the ISU department’s intervention will benefit the community.

“I think [alcohol abuse] is our number one substance abuse problem,” he said. “It’s a domino effect with other crimes that are related to drunkenness.”

Robinson agreed football games, concerts, Veishea and sporting events add to the number of liquor law violations.

“We have more people in our community as compared to a regular weekend,” he said.

Preliminary numbers show that drunk driving offenses have gone down significantly, and sexual assault and assault reports have gone down since early intervention has been initiated, Robinson said.

“These types of numbers are out of the ordinary. I would not expect this trend to continue,” he said.

However, not all law enforcement officers in the state believe enforcement of this nature is the answer to solving the problem.

“Enforcement is not the answer to everything,” said Lt. Milissa Wright of the University of Northern Iowa’s Department of Public Safety. “Let’s focus on education.”

Stewart said he doesn’t know of any ways outside of early intervention to lower the number of crimes that result from liquor violations.

“It will probably level off in 2004,” Stewart said. “I don’t know if our staff can do anymore.”

In order to lower the number of liquor violations, ISU Police officers participate in a number of crime prevention programs in the greek community and in the residence halls throughout the year, he said. They are actively involved in two programs: “Get A Grip” which is tailored to high school students, and a social norms program which provides accurate data on drinking, Stewart said.

Brad Allison, University of Iowa crime prevention specialist, said liquor law violations are fairly prevalent in Iowa City.

“We have our share of liquor law violations,” he said.

In 2002, there were 149 liquor law violations, Allison said. The 2003 statistics have yet to be released.

“We usually average around 150 to 180 liquor law violations per year,” he said.

Stewart said he does not think underage drinking is any more of a problem at Iowa State than at similar institutions.