Clayton has simple alcohol mantra: Treat it with respect – Iowa City Press

Jim Clayton’s philosophy when it comes to alcohol can be distilled to four words, he says.

“Treat it with respect,” says Clayton, the downtown Iowa City business owner who earlier this month was appointed chairman of the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Commission beginning July 1.

“I’m not trying to ban it. I’m not trying to over-regulate it. We must treat it with respect. And I think being on the commission has given me that opportunity, and I’ll continue my next two years with that mantra.”

Clayton is serving his second and final five-year term on the commission after first being appointed by Gov. Tom Vilsack, then reappointed by Gov. Chet Culver. The five-member group serves as the policy-making body of the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division, which directly controls the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages and enforces state and federal laws and regulations for alcohol and tobacco.

Clayton co-owns The Soap Opera, a family run bath and body product shop that he and wife Christine Allen opened 31 years ago. With his business situated in the pedestrian mall, perhaps the state’s most concentrated area of drinking, he has had a front-row seat to the negative effects alcohol can have on a community.

“I do business in downtown Iowa City; I know the harms that can be caused by too much at too low a price at too many places,” Clayton said. “I was glad to be appointed because I bring that voice.”

Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division Administrator Steve Larson said Clayton’s background working outside the alcohol industry, as well as his familiarity with the Iowa City area, are important assets for the commission.

“One thing about Jim is he’s committed to being an involved commission member, and he takes his role very seriously, which is great,” Larson said. “And he provides good balance because of the activity we have in the Johnson County area.”

Clayton has been involved in alcohol-related policy debates for a decade, serving as the project coordinator for the Stepping Up Coalition, a city and university initiative aimed at curbing binge and underage drinking, from 2002 to 2005. In 2007, Clayton helped lead an unsuccessful push to raise Iowa City’s bar entry age from 19 to 21. When the issue was put put before voters again in 2010, the tide had turned and the public upheld a City Council decision to move to 21-only.

While Clayton comes to the commission from a harm prevention perspective, he said he is in no way a prohibitionist. Before opening his business, he ran a historic hotel in Galena, Ill., where he had a liquor license for his restaurant and bar. And for many years, he was a home brewing hobbyist in Illinois, making his own beers in the corner of his garage.

Back when he was a student at Beloit College in Wisconsin, he remembers driving up to Madison to get beer with friends. But he said the times have changed since then.

“We didn’t have goal-oriented drinking,” Clayton said. “So much of the research we got from the Harvard School of Public Health when we did Stepping Up indicated that young people were goal drinking. They were saying, ‘I’m going to get drunk.’ They were pre-drinking at home and then going out and having a good time downtown. It was dangerous.”

Clayton said the commission has taken a number of positive steps in recent years, including scheduling forums around the state to better engage the public, and hosting informational meetings on topics such as native wine and distilling. He also points to the expansion of online services for ordering and licensing, and the establishment of a new ABD enforcement team that travels the state, as important strides.

Clayton said his role as a commission member often means asking if distributing a product is in the best interests of the public, and not just for bringing in more revenue for the state. For instance, he points to the commission’s decisions to not list a liquor called Adult Chocolate Milk and another called Cotton Candy.

“We cannot count on the fact that a beer truck says ‘Be responsible’ on the back of it. We cannot count on the fact that the people who make hard liquor say, ‘Drink it responsibly,’” Clayton said. “We need to make sure that the product itself is responsible, that there’s not underlying subtext with a product.When somebody comes out with a product that’s vodka that is recommended to be kept in the refrigerator at home, and the name of it is Cotton Candy, some of us think that’s a bad idea to have that laying around the house.

Iowa City Council member Rick Dobyns, who worked with Clayton during the initial 21-only campaign in 2007, said he admires the energy Clayton has put into becoming an expert in alcohol issues.

“Jim stepped away from being a merchant and stepped into an area far away from his chosen profession — learning the arcane regulations regarding the alcohol industry and policy in government,” said Dobyns, a clinical professor of family medicine at the University of Iowa. “He mastered them and put effort both physically and intellectually into learning what he needed to do to make things better.”