The Ames City Council unanimously voted to deny The One Night Stand bar a renewed liquor license due to two failed compliance checks and 10 underage citations Tuesday.

The owner and operator of The One Night Stand, Jerrad Atkin, spoke to the council and explained the circumstances surrounding one of the failed compliance checks but did not dispute the citations or fines.

“The girls behind the bar were busy, they asked the door guy for ice, he left his station [and] went and got them ice, that’s when things happen I understand that,” said Atkin. “We have had two [failed compliance checks] in seven years; they just happen to be consecutively year back to back.”

Atkin also called upon the council to increase punishments for minors attempting to get into bars. He suggested associating 100 hours of community service with a fine.

“I don’t want minors in my bar, this university doesn’t want minors in the bar– nobody does,” Atkin said. “If we’re trying to fight the same problem, there should be way stricter penalties if they get caught.”

Following Atkin’s comments, a motion from At-Large Rep. Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen passed unanimously asking city staff to provide the current penalties for those violations and the maximum increase the council is allowed, and if the staff has any recommendations to change the penalties.

Regardless of the council’s actions, The One Night Stand faces a 30-day suspension and a $1,500 fine by the Iowa Alcoholic and Beverages Division for two failed compliance checks within two years.

The council unanimously voted to approve a 12-month liquor license for Mickey’s Irish Pub. The establishment had 14 more underage citations than The One Night Stand but passed its compliance checks.

Ames Police Chief Geoff justified the approved recommendation by differentiating the severity of the violations stating that above these violations, colluding to let minors in is the worst.

“Right below [collusion] is probably compliance check failures, it is a pretty low bar to just make sure you’re checking an ID and that’s pretty bad,” said Huff. “Under that is when you have patrons using a fake ID to get into a bar.”

Urban Fringe Plan

The council could vote on three measures regarding the Urban Fringe Plan on Tuesday evening, however, there was continuous back and forth between them, the City of Gilbert and Story County.

“I feel like this is a step backward in the work we have done and what I respectfully ask the county to remember is [that] Ames is two-thirds of Story County,” Ward 2 Rep. Tim Gartin said. “I don’t represent the City of Gilbert, I represent the City of Ames.”

Gartin was one of two members to vote against two proposals on the plan. The council voted 4-2 on measures to investigate an option to partially map the area north of 190th Street as urban reserve and maintain the former Champlin property as a growth area, while agreeing with the county’s other requested changes in the southwest regarding urban reserve.

When Mayor John Haila asked Ames City Planner Kelly Diekmann about the future of the agreement between Gilbert and Story County, he said Ames would enter the agreement with one or both entities.

“We are not saying it is a three-party agreement unless all three parties want to be in the agreement,” Diekmann said. “[If both parties disagree], then I would say we’re done, I don’t know what else there is to discuss at this time.”

As of now, the current Urban Fringe Plan is scheduled to expire in April..

Home Occupation Regulations

The council unanimously approved changes to the code on home-based businesses after the state legislature banned cities from regulating them with some exceptions. One example of the changes is that a homeowner would no longer need to build an egress window in a finished basement if they moved an office into it.

Gartin suggested the government most responsive to this issue is the closest one rather than the state government, and said this is another example of the legislature eroding the home rule Iowans have had for fifty years.

“I wouldn’t begin to make proposals for how this area of law should be handled in Burlington or Sioux City, and yet our friends in the legislature decided in their wisdom to have a one size fits all policy for the whole state,” Gartin said. “Put that in the paper, tell that to the legislature.”