Safety And Licensing Committee Vote To Approve Resolution Updating Appleton’s Alcohol License Demerit Point System

The Safety and Licensing Committee met 12/08/2021 and took up Resolution #16-R-21 which pertains to alcohol license demerit points.

This resolution was introduced by Alderperson Michael Smith (District 10), and he was the first one asked to speak about it.

He explained to the committee that he, Attorney Glad, and police lieutenant Nagel, with help from City Clerk Kami Lynch, had been working on this resolution for several months. The resolution had been prompted by the way demerit points currently drop off businesses’ record and how delaying court proceedings currently can allow bad actors to continue acting badly.

Attorney Glad said that the city currently has a 12-month lookback period for demerit points for suspensions and an 18-month lookback for revocations. Demerit points can only be applied after being convicted in court, but, upon conviction, the points are applied retroactively to the date of the violation. Because of that, businesses are able to actively delay or prolong their court cases or simply benefit passively from court congestion to the point that demerits drop off their record. That negatively impacts the ability of the demerit point system to target habitually troublesome licensees.

There were a few parts to the resolution.

• They doubled the lookback periods from 12 to 24 months for suspensions and 18 to 36 months for revocations. That was intended to help alleviate the frustrations caused by delays and also add to the effectiveness of the Safety and Licensing Committee to identify and take action against habitually troublesome licensees.
• They made demerits apply from the date of conviction instead of retroactively to the date of the violation. That meant it wouldn’t matter so much how long the courts took to decide a case.
• They set the resolution’s effective date as July 1, 2022. That allowed this to apply to all licenses that get approved for the next year, so it would not unfairly impact businesses that already have a license because they would not be changing the rules for current licenses.
• They inserted language requiring any business with demerit points of between 15-140 in a 24-month period to come and talk to the Safety and Licensing Committee about the circumstances surrounding the accumulation of those demerits. That would allow the committee to talk to them about what they’re doing to rectify the situation which would hopefully result in better outcomes for both the city and the establishment.

Alderperson Smith said that in the past when a person had accumulated a certain amount of demerit points, they would be invited to the Safety and Licensing Committee to discuss how they had acquired the demerits and ways those issues could be remedied. He said that often new businesses would forget the tools that were available to them such as having the police department teach their bartenders how to recognize fake IDs, to better handle rowdy customers, and to know when to call for help. They would have a chance to review these things that they either had forgotten or didn’t have a chance to learn in the first place. Often, they were very grateful that they were able to discuss the matter with the Safety and Licensing Committee, and they would start implementing recommended changes.

Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) asked Attorney Glad to explain why they wanted to move from a 12-month period to a 24-month period. She wondered if that would mean there were be more police interactions than previously.

Attorney Glad answered that currently only demerit points accumulated in a 12-month period can be used to identify habitually troublesome licensees. By doubling that lookback period, they would be doubling the length of time demerit points could accumulate which would make it easier to identify troublesome establishments.

Alderperson Van Zeeland asked Police Chief Thomas if he had any comments.

Chief Thomas thanked Alderperson Smith for bringing this resolution forward. This issue has been a challenge for the police department during the 7+ years he has been police chief, and they’ve had many discussions regarding revisiting the city’s demerit point system. He really liked what had been proposed and the doubling of the lookback period. He liked the idea that the demerit points would not be made retroactive. He also noted that the new rules did not take away the discretion that the committee has. He said he was very supportive of the resolution.

Alderperson Van Zeeland wanted to know how these proposed rules compared to the demerit point systems in surrounding municipalities and whether those communities had similar issues as Appleton does.

Attorney Glad said they looked at a number of other communities and how they handled their demerit points, and there was a lot of difference between those various communities. For example, in Beaver Dam the police chief would meet with a bar owner and fill out the demerit points after discussion, so the chief had a lot of discretion on the front end and then if the person didn’t like how the meeting went then it would go to Beaver Dam’s version of the Safety and Licensing Committee which would hold a mini-hearing and impose demerit points. Another city whose name he couldn’t remember off the top of his head had a system virtually identical to Appleton’s system, although he could not remember what their lookback periods were. He noted that he got a lot of feedback from other communities that they weren’t using their demerit point systems as they were written into their municipal codes. He thought that was possibly due to frustration with using the systems.

Alderperson Van Zeeland asked how many times this had been an issue for the Attorney’s office.

Attorney Glad said that historically they had some troublesome bars that ended up having old demerits fall off as new ones were coming on and the city could never take action regarding them. They had not had issues, though, for a couple of years.

Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) said he was trying to figure out what kind of effect this would have on the Attorney’s Office. Would it increase the workload and increase the number of cases that have to be litigated?

Attorney Glad said that he didn’t think these changes would have resulted in a revocation or suspension if they’d been in place over the last two or three years. He did remember certain establishment right when he first started working for the city who would have been impacted. The police department had been struggling with them to fix issues because the calls for service were out of hand. At this point, one of those establishments is no longer in business and the other has made a lot of changes to their business model as recommended by the police department and are no longer accumulating demerit points.

Alderperson Van Zeeland commented that it seemed like the system currently in place made it advantageous for businesses to keep pushing courts dates out and that could then have an adverse effect on the Attorney’s Office workload. It seemed like the recommended changes would address those issues.

Attorney Glad agreed with her.

Chief Thomas also agreed. He said that he thought the proposed changes would get troublesome nuisance establishments in front of the committee sooner rather than later and would help avoid having a gallery full of upsetting citizens complaining about why things aren’t being taken care of. They’ll be able to start discussions with the business earlier. He said the changes would not increase their workload and might actually reduce it because they would be able to be more proactive and address issues earlier on.

Alderperson Schultz light heartedly said, “If you [Attorney Glad] like it and you [Chief Thomas] like it then I like it.”

Alderperson Van Zeeland pointed out that they hadn’t received any feedback from the business community and said, “I guess I don’t want to speak for them, but it seems to me like when it comes to these types of things, establishments do like it when the problem children are taken care of so it doesn’t reflect on their business.”

No one else had any other questions or comment, and the committee voted unanimously to approve the resolution.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=896498&GUID=E818F0A6-EB51-438F-BF5F-5B21753EFFD7