One-Eyed Jakes bartenders scrambled to distribute punch cards at the main bar at 11:30 p.m.

Upstairs, manager Tom Lenoch scanned the crowd on the dance floor, intently searching for fluorescent wrist bands on those holding drinks.

“The black light we have installed up here makes it easy to see exactly who is drinking legally and who we need to take drinks from,” he said.

One-Eyed Jakes, 18-20 S. Clinton St., is one of two “problem bars” yet to request a liquor-license renewal from the Iowa City City Council, said Iowa City police Sgt. Troy Kelsay. And Lenoch is nervous about the approaching renewal date later this semester.

As he should be.

The idea of liquor-license renewals has been troubling some local bar owners since late July, when the City Council denied 3rd Base Sports Bar, 111 E. College St., and Et Cetera, 118 S. Dubuque St., their requests for renewals. Many downtown bars are now working to upgrade their tactics for catching underage drinkers.

Lenoch — otherwise known as DJ Breakfast — told The Daily Iowan he continually tries to control underage drinking in his establishment.

“It’s not the bar owners who control the underage possession, it’s the 21 year olds that buy legally and redistribute to minors that do,” he said.

Eager to prove that new underage drinking standards have been implemented at One-Eyed Jakes, Lenoch slammed a thick stack of last weekend’s confiscated fake IDs onto the bar.

“I do everything in my power to control underage drinking here,” he said before the punch-card rush early Wednesday night.

Only six out of the 110 establishments with liquor licenses in Iowa City are considered a problem, Kelsay said.

Since the council implemented new criteria for denying liquor-licenses this summer, Kelsay said, two bars have failed, two barely passed, and two others are up for renewal.

Police look for three specific characterizations when identifying “problem bars,” he said.

“We look for a high population of underage persons, a chronic PAULA history, and the number of call-ins we receive about that particular establishment,” he said.

A prompt removal from this list is the goal of all current “problem bar” owners.

Feeling the stress of a recent denial, Et Cetera owner George Etre said he knows his business is one of the establishments Iowa City police are watching carefully.

In response, he recently sat down with Kelsay to discuss plans on how to decrease the number of PAULAs cited in his bar.

“This is very productive for George,” Kelsay said. “He has outlined some concrete steps.”

Etre’s “Underage Alcohol Incident Reduction Plan” includes six steps he wants to integrate, including buying special fake ID scanners and creating a stricter procedure for identifying minors who might try to tear off wristbands or wash off markings that identify them as underage.

While he doesn’t plan to go 21 only, Etre said he hopes to create an advertising plan marketed toward those over the legal age.

“We plan on showing the city and the police that we are serious and plan to take the necessary steps to get this right,” Etre said.

Even with all the necessary precautions taken, Lenoch said the Summit, 10 S. Clinton St., and One-Eyed Jakes are still worried about their fates as their licenses approach expiration in the upcoming months.

With a PAULA ratio at 1.130 — the number of citations issued divided by the number of police visits — and a Jan. 17, 2010 expiration date, One-Eyed Jakes is barely over the 1.00 standard the City Council uses to either approve or deny applications for renewal.

“I am confident that with the amount of concern Tom has expressed, and the amount of time he still has until renewal, he should be able to get those numbers down,” Kelsay said.

As for the Summit, which has a PAULA ratio of 1.9 and an expiration date of Nov. 14, there is nothing more than doubt felt among bar personnel.

“We would need 44 visits in one month, basically two bar checks a day, with zero citations, to qualify for a liquor-license renewal,” said Lenoch, who also works at Summit.

But even with the city’s and bar owners’ efforts and tougher regulations in place, some say the issue of underage drinking will likely not disappear.

“Students who want to drink are still going to drink,” Kelsay said.