2008 Woodie Awards
Letters to the Editor
Issue date: 11/5/07 Section: Opinions
- Page 1 of 1
21-ordinance is the way of sanity
Let me ask you this: If we already limited bar access to those legally allowed to buy alcohol, would you vote to lower the age of entry in order to limit house parties and bolster downtown business? If not, please join me in supporting sane regulation of bars by voting yes for 21.
I'm not oblivious to the side effects of limiting bar access to those legally allowed to buy alcohol. Not every young person excluded from bars will seek out a house party, but some will. That means that we as a community will have to take the next step in our effort and find ways to manage that problem. Again, I have to be frank. Managing house parties will be much easier politically than managing underage drinking downtown has been. No one's going to donate tens of thousands of dollars to support house parties.
I'm also well aware that eliminating between 10,000 and 20,000 potential customers for downtown bars will reduce their profitability. It seems likely that downtown rents and property values will drop. Every economic change produces winners and losers. In this case, the losers are bar owners who rely on underage patrons and (at least temporarily) downtown commercial-property owners. The winners are entrepreneurs who will take advantage of lower costs to introduce new businesses downtown. In the 21 years I've lived in Iowa City, downtown has been reinvented in at least two ways. Don't tell me our community isn't creative enough to reinvent it again.
Writing in my role as a private citizen, I urge you to vote yes on the 21-ordinance and call five of your friends to make sure they vote, too.
Tom Rocklin
UI staff
Sexist DI photo
I question the choice of photos and captions to accompany the article that reported yet another assault on an Iowa City victim.
One photograph was of a woman in a short skirt taken on Oct. 6, the night of the Studio 54 party at Union Bar (whereas the assault being reported took place nearly a month later, on a woman who was wearing athletic shorts - or in other words, what was the relation of the photograph to the article, other than that it was of a woman in the evening?). The second photograph included as part of its caption "Despite 30 plus sexual assaults in the past year, women continue to walk alone after dark." Setting aside the fact that many of us have no choice in the matter (after all, beginning next week, "dark" starts at 5 p.m. or earlier), the choice of materials to run alongside the article takes the emphasis off the person assaulting women and puts the emphasis instead on women's behavior, implying that how women dress or whether they walk somewhere after dark causes them to be assaulted. While we can all make prudent choices, the DI's article only adds fuel to the fire for those who would blame the victims.
Andrea Strane
UI graduate student
Let me ask you this: If we already limited bar access to those legally allowed to buy alcohol, would you vote to lower the age of entry in order to limit house parties and bolster downtown business? If not, please join me in supporting sane regulation of bars by voting yes for 21.
I'm not oblivious to the side effects of limiting bar access to those legally allowed to buy alcohol. Not every young person excluded from bars will seek out a house party, but some will. That means that we as a community will have to take the next step in our effort and find ways to manage that problem. Again, I have to be frank. Managing house parties will be much easier politically than managing underage drinking downtown has been. No one's going to donate tens of thousands of dollars to support house parties.
I'm also well aware that eliminating between 10,000 and 20,000 potential customers for downtown bars will reduce their profitability. It seems likely that downtown rents and property values will drop. Every economic change produces winners and losers. In this case, the losers are bar owners who rely on underage patrons and (at least temporarily) downtown commercial-property owners. The winners are entrepreneurs who will take advantage of lower costs to introduce new businesses downtown. In the 21 years I've lived in Iowa City, downtown has been reinvented in at least two ways. Don't tell me our community isn't creative enough to reinvent it again.
Writing in my role as a private citizen, I urge you to vote yes on the 21-ordinance and call five of your friends to make sure they vote, too.
Tom Rocklin
UI staff
Sexist DI photo
I question the choice of photos and captions to accompany the article that reported yet another assault on an Iowa City victim.
One photograph was of a woman in a short skirt taken on Oct. 6, the night of the Studio 54 party at Union Bar (whereas the assault being reported took place nearly a month later, on a woman who was wearing athletic shorts - or in other words, what was the relation of the photograph to the article, other than that it was of a woman in the evening?). The second photograph included as part of its caption "Despite 30 plus sexual assaults in the past year, women continue to walk alone after dark." Setting aside the fact that many of us have no choice in the matter (after all, beginning next week, "dark" starts at 5 p.m. or earlier), the choice of materials to run alongside the article takes the emphasis off the person assaulting women and puts the emphasis instead on women's behavior, implying that how women dress or whether they walk somewhere after dark causes them to be assaulted. While we can all make prudent choices, the DI's article only adds fuel to the fire for those who would blame the victims.
Andrea Strane
UI graduate student
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Tom Rocklin
posted 11/05/07 @ 8:57 AM CST
My letter was edited before printing. The full text appears below.
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Can we be frank? No one believes that providing young people with easy access to alcohol is a good thing for them or for our community. (Continued…)
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