Unlike past Iowa State students, the current crop of under 21-Cyclones isn’t able to enjoy “teen bars” like their counterparts in Cedar Falls and Iowa City, leaving some ISU students wondering why.

Students at the state’s other two Regent universities — the University of Northern lowa in Cedar Falls and the University of Iowa in Iowa City — have the opportunity to socialize at 19-bars.

“I’ve gone to the 19-bars at the University of lowa and I had a lot of fun. I wish we had something like that at lowa State. I’ve always wondered why we don’t,” said Rachel Stuhr, a sophomore in liberal arts and sciences.

Nineteen-bars became a thing of the past in Ames in 1990 when the City Council declined to extend a temporary ordinance that let those under 21 into bars.

Cedar Falls has four 19-bars. The bars are all in one area called “College Hill.”

David Lorenson, owner of The Stein Pizza House in Cedar Falls, said students go to his bar for the dancing.

According to Lorenson, students must show a picture ID with their date of birth at the door. No student IDs are accepted. They then have “NO” or “LEGAL” stamped on their hands.

“We have found as a city, that it’s better to let kids in,” Lorenson said. Lorenson is also the chairman of the College Hill Implementation Committee and he is on the Cedar Falls Police Oversight Board.

Lorenson said the Cedar Falls police chief and the UNI director of public safety prefer to keep drinking in a controlled situation.

“We have people out on the floor watching that they drink or don’t drink, and we watch that people are not over drinking that are of age,” he said. “Whereas when we wouldn’t allow people to come into bars, they seek entertainment elsewhere.”

The Ames Municipal Code prohibits anyone under 21 from entering an establishment where more than half of the business conducted is through the sale or dispensing of alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises.

The ordinance has been in place since 1979, and there are few exceptions to the rule. People under 21 are allowed into businesses where chiefly alcohol is sold only if they are with their parents, employed by the bar or eating. For “bar and grills,” the establishment must be able to prove by its receipts that more than 50 percent of its profits come from food sales during posted hours.

There is also an exception that allows parties and special-event nights to be held at bars if the police chief grants a permit.

Ames Police Chief Dennis Ballantine said when groups are granted such a permit, “you have to do certain things … You have to have a certain number of monitors there. You have to have wrist bands … There is a whole list of criteria.”

During Homecoming week this semester, students under 21 were allowed to go to the bars in Campustown Wednesday night. While students enjoyed the opportunity, police said there were many problems.

“My bar people went out there and there was a real problem. They [the owners] were not obeying the rules they had agreed to,” Ballantine said.

He said there were many fights that broke out due to underage students drinking.

“I am not planning on allowing that activity to take place again,” Ballantine said.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the city allowed underage customers in a bar if owners took special measures to identify those who were underage.

“It was passed for a six-month trial time period, at which time if the Council chose not to re-enact it, it would automatically die,” said Judy Parks, assistant Ames city attorney.

The “Over-Under Ordinance,” allowed people under 21 but over 18 to go to the bars as long as they were identified by wrist bands. It was an experiment which started July of 1989 and ended January of 1990.

According to Parks, the temporary ordinance was tried because students were interested in having a place for adults who were under the legal drinking age to dance. But in 1990 Ballantine recommended to the City Council that it not be continued. No efforts have been made to implement a similar ordinance since.

“The problem we had with them [19-bars] is very simple. Nobody wanted to obey it … Nobody monitored it, and we ended up having all kinds of additional problems with more people drinking underage,” Ballantine said. “The Over-Under Ordinance didn’t work because there was no way to adequately control access to the alcohol once they were in there.”

Ballantine said bar owners in Ames would like to allow underage students into their establishments because they would increase their sales. But he said he will not support 19-bars until the state law provides stricter punishments for bar owners who allow those under 21 to drink.

“It’s kind of like inviting the fox into the chicken house on the promise he won’t eat the chickens,” he said. “Right now, under state law, the amount of punishment that can be given to a bar owner that chooses to turn their head and let everybody drink is not sufficient to make it work.”

In Iowa, a bar owner can allow any number of underage people to drink and will only receive a maximum of a $50 fine per night. As long as those underage are more than 19-years-old, it will not affect their license. Ballantine said he would agree to permitting 19-bars if a bar owner could lose his or her license for knowingly allowing those under the legal drinking age to drink.

Parks said if students want to re-establish 19-bars in Ames, they must get a proposal on the agenda of a City Council meeting.