In January 2024, Unimpaired, the only dry bar in Iowa City, closed its doors for good after being in business for just over two years. Its failure was a stark contrast to the thriving downtown Iowa City nightlife scene surrounding it, where the streets are flooded with students all chasing the same thing: cheap, plentiful liquor.

On a Saturday night, chaos reigns in downtown Iowa City. Bars line the streets, each offering variations of the same scene: crowded lines, blaring music, and a constant flow of pitchers and shots. Yellow and black signs echo the University of Iowa’s school colors while advertising promotions like “Whiskey Wednesday” and “Two Dollar Tuesday.”

At times, students in bar crawl T-shirts can be seen stumbling through the streets of Iowa City. It’s only 6 p.m., but they’ve been drinking since early afternoon and have hours left to go.

The culture is consumption, the value of a night out is measured in quantity rather than quality, and when it comes to bars to drink in, the options are endless.

For most students, the concept of a bar is so intertwined with drinking culture that the idea of a bar without alcohol is simply unthinkable. Unimpaired, despite its best efforts to offer an alternative environment, simply couldn’t seem to sustain itself in a culture where binge drinking is the norm.

For undergraduate student Esti Brady, Iowa City nightlife is a familiar scene.

“[My friends and I] are very in tune with what bars have which deals on what days of the week. $2 drinks, $3 drinks — that’s a hard deal to say no to,” Brady said. “Then, once you’re consuming those drinks, it’s hard to not want to get as much bang for your buck as you can. Maybe you only intend on having three or four drinks when you go out, but it’s a slippery slope sometimes.”

Brady describes this behavior as normal in their social circle. While some students acknowledge their drinking is unhealthy, attempts to change their habits are few and far between.

“There’s a vague understanding that people drink too much, but it’s not seriously acknowledged. We joke like, ‘Oh you can’t have a drinking problem until you graduate,’ but in all honesty, I am genuinely kind of concerned about how hard it’s going to be to break these habits once we graduate and enter the normal adult world,” Brady said.

Brady is scheduled to graduate in spring 2025 and knows that for many people, that window of denial is closing fast.

“I’m already thinking about how I need to start trying to practice sober socializing. Right now, that feels like a skill that many people just don’t have and are genuinely going to need,” Brady said.

Unhealthy drinking habits have been a prominent topic of discussion for years for UI staff and administration. One university initiative to combat this culture is the Alcohol Harm Reduction Advisory Committee. The AHRAC aims to implement strategies on campus and throughout the broader Iowa City community to curb high-risk drinking and minimize the negative effects of alcohol use among the student body.

Committee c-chairs Shelly Campo and Tanya Villhauer warn that many students who come to the UI enter with the idea that alcohol and “the college experience” are
inherently intertwined.

“There are underlying messages that many students enter the UI with the idea that, ‘Oh you’re going to experiment, you’re going to drink,’” Villhauer said. “[Students] want to fit in, find their group, belong. To do that, maybe everyone in their residence hall is going downtown. They don’t want to be the only one not going.”

Villhauer is quick to point out, however, that binge drinking culture is not exclusive to college students, and that many of the issues seen on the UI campus mirror issues people of all ages across both Iowa and the broader Midwest region face.

According to a report by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services in 2022, Iowa had the fourth highest binge drinking rate in the nation.

“We often look at our college students under a microscope, but we have to understand the contexts and the environments in which they are brought up. Many of them are born and raised in states that have a high adult drinking rate. You have to understand that this is not just a college effect — it’s a broader culture,” Villhauer said.

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To promote alternatives to this culture, the UI’s AHRAC provides Late Night Grant Funding to collaborate with local businesses, supporting options for social activities that do not revolve around drinking. Late-night grants can be used for student groups and organizations to fund safe, healthy, and sober events at night.

The organization has funded local businesses, including Bijou and FilmScene, to support events like FilmScene’s Four Dollar Fridays, providing students with a cheap opportunity to experience downtown Iowa City without alcohol.

The idea that students don’t have enough options besides drinking is a common one. Brady described the sheer number of bars downtown as being almost oppressive.

“So much of the downtown is bars — it’s almost inescapable,” Brady said. “It doesn’t feel like there are a whole lot of other ways to socialize that don’t involve alcohol. If you want to meet new people or hang out with friends, you almost feel obligated to participate in the drinking culture.”

Cecilia Sileo, 21-year-old Kirkwood Community College graduate, shares a similar feeling. Sileo has been sober for four years but still joins her friends at the bars, expressing that if she didn’t go out to the bars, she would not be able to fully participate socially with her peers.

“There are some other options for things to do, obviously, but the places where people congregate at night are bars,” Sileo said. “If you’re someone who isn’t comfortable going to the bars, you’re kind of out of luck when it comes to hanging out with your friends past 6 p.m.”

Despite both students’ desire for an alternative to the binge drinking culture, Unimpaired, the dry bar, did not satisfy what either of them was looking for.

“When it was opening up, I thought it was a great idea, but I never went there myself,” Brady said. “Supporting something in theory and supporting something financially are two very different things. Unfortunately, most college students have limited income and just don’t see the point in spending their money on a drink that isn’t going to get them drunk.”

Sileo, who is sober, did go to Unimpaired, but primarily just to experience the novelty of a dry bar. Despite her different circumstances, her opinion echoed Brady’s.

“Their drinks had fake liquor that tasted like real alcohol. I tried that after getting sober just because I was curious, but I didn’t like it because it felt too much like I was actually drinking. It just felt pointless to me as a sober person. I only ever drank to get drunk, I didn’t drink for the scrumptious taste of liquor,” Sileo joked.

There are many possible explanations as to why Unimpaired did not last long in Iowa City, but ultimately, its closure reflects a broader issue. Binge drinking culture has so deeply permeated the landscape of Iowa City that establishments promoting alternatives to drinking are perceived as gimmicky and out of place, even by those who crave more options.

For some students, spending money on a drink that doesn’t get them drunk feels unjustifiable. For others, drinks with fake liquor miss the mark as a misguided attempt to emulate an already existing culture.

Campo points out, however, that binge drinking rates are decreasing, and narratives around alcohol are subject to change. Villhauer encourages people to think about the narratives and the culture they are perpetuating about alcohol consumption.

“We have tried to look at helping families think about how they talk about alcohol before our students getting to campus,” Villhauer said. “What we normalize becomes an expectation.”