21 Bars on November IC ballot?

21 bars on November IC ballot?

Failed city council candidate Rick Dobyns wants to put the 21 bar admission issue on the ballot this fall. This should give me good material for several months of rants.

Rick, Rick, Rick. Haven't you learned? Didn't you look at the numbers and your overwhelming defeat in the student precincts? Didn't you see the student liaison to the city council at Mike O'Donnell's victory party? We don't know if you're running again, but 21 bars cost you the seat on the council. And now you're doing the one thing that will guarantee a high student turnout this fall. Young candidates: this year is your opportunity. At least one at-large seat is likely to be open as Bob Elliott is pretty openly acknowledging he won't run. And Dee Vanderhoef, up for re-election, is solidly pro-21.

There's almost no honesty from anyone on this issue.

Political figures: Please say publicly what you admit privately, and what reasonable folks know: the 21 year old drinking age is an ineffective and unjust law and should be scrapped. I hear 19 from a lot of folks but I prefer 18; an adult is an adult and let the schools figure it out.

Bar owners: Acknowledge your economic self-interest. You make a lot of money selling to those "underage" folks and that fake ID looks just fine to you in the dark.

Students: Come on. You don't really want to get into the bar to "dance" and "hang out with your older friends".

Self-proclaimed public health do-gooders: You have enough advanced degrees between you to know that age and alcoholism, use and abuse, are different questions. Some 18 year olds can drink responsibly; I can't and I'm 43. And you know enough psychology to realize that the forbidden is enticing:

'An Age Line!' Fred Weasley said, his eyes glinting, as they all made their way across the Hall to the doors into the Entrance Hall. 'Well, that should be fooled by an Aging Potion, shouldn't it?
(Harry Potter and the Goblet of Two For One Mixed Drinks at Happy Hour, p. 3462)

Barring young adults from the bars will just lead to bigger and badder house parties and new advances in fake ID technology.

Yet I wish the good doctor good luck in his petition drive, as I think the result will be the opposite of his intent.