Safety And Licensing Committee Votes 4-1 To Recommend The Corner Pub’s Alcohol License For Renewal

The Safety and Licensing Committee met 08/14/2024. They took up for, what is hopefully the last time, the request to not renew the alcohol license for the Corner Pub. This was the fourth meeting during which the committee has discussed the item which first came before them on 06/26/2024.

Briefly told, the business suffered damage from a broken waterpipe in February of 2023 and the building was closed by the city on 05/30/2023. The owner was informed in July of 2023 that in order to maintain her alcohol license the business needed to be reopened by 05/30/2024; however, a concerted effort to repair the building and reopen did not occur until after 05/30/2024 when the city took formal steps to not renew the business’ alcohol license. The owner pointed to health issues and the deaths of several family members over the last year as the reason for not commencing work earlier, and indicated that she had not known her license was at risk of not being renewed until the city started non-renewal proceedings.

The item was discussed and voted on by the Safety and Licensing Committee several times with the committee recommendation changing from recommending the item be held at committee to recommending denial of the license to recommending an extension.

During the 08/14/2024 meeting, the committee voted 4-1 to recommend that the license renewal be approved because the building was now repaired and compliant with code and able to reopen.

I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:

Kim, the owner of the Corner Pub, spoke to the committee and said that all the work had been completed and the inspectors told them that they were good to go. Daniel Meissner, the Commercial Building Inspector for the City of Appleton, confirmed for the committee that the building was compliant.

The committee did end up voting 4-1 to recommend that the license be renewed.

Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6), who voted in favor of the license renewal, said, “I would just like to emphasize for my vote and my advocacy of extending this time, I do not find any fault with any staff, city staff in the process. […] I don’t think there was any anything done wrong or omitted there. But I just believe that we did what we did out of compassion for extraordinary circumstances, and I don’t think that this should be a normal process, but I do think we did the right thing this time, and I thank everybody involved for working with the owners, the citizens, and the committee here for working this out.”

Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) was not on the committee, but she expressed opposition to renewing the license. The business had not operated for an entire year prior to the 05/30/2024 deadline, and it was now  2 ½ months after that. “How many people, how many other businesses, ready, willing, and able to procure liquor license from this city, could have done so in the meantime? And today, later on, on your agenda, there are two people who are applying for licenses that will have to pay $10,500 for their licenses. And I’m not sure that that’s the fairest and most equitable way for this committee and this city to proceed in treating businesses. It’s a sticky situation, and […] I understand that that’s a very sticky thing, but this situation makes me very uncomfortable about how the law has been and how the Council has been fairly treating every single applicant to this city for a liquor license.”

Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15), who voted against the license renewal, noted that the municipal code already provided a 1 year period for businesses in situations like this to reopen. “I can’t help but feel that this committee and our Council have abused and made a mockery of this ordinance that we have and sort of just absolutely stretching beyond belief the good cause element that was enacted here. […] I know we heard about the extenuating circumstances that the owners had, but as Alder Hartzheim had also pointed out, there have been businesses waiting who are now having to pay extra for a license that they may have already, and should have, in my mind, had access to.”

He finished by saying, “I think the way that we continue to operate sometimes as voting on feelings rather than facts and logic is just so frustrating to me. We give businesses the run around; we put staff through much more work than they should have to go through; and we continue to just give our city, a bad name, and it’s just really frustrating. And I’m disappointed in this group and our Council that we continue to make these kind of decisions. And I believe that this is the wrong decision to issue this license, even though they have their work done, and I commend them for finishing that and the work that they’ve gone through. But this is not the right decision, and I will not support it.”

Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) disagreed with Alderperson Doran’s comments and said, “[T]hings happen. Businesses are caught unawares. Even the most prepared business, whether they’re private or public or nonprofit, can find themselves in a situation where they did not submit the things that they were supposed to do. So, I understand that we need to follow the letter of the law, but sometimes the spirit can be more important.” He understood that it was a “large oversight “ by the business to wait as long as it did to make repairs, “But as a committee, seeing what we’ve seen and understanding what we now know for the effort and the good will of this business and staff, I think it sheds a positive light, not a negative one, on what we do as a city. So I take issue with that last statement, and I would say that as a committee, that is our role to understand when we find ourselves in situations where we are up against the letter of the law and ordinances, whether it’s local or state, to have the capacity to understand that someone’s in a sticky situation and give them some gravity and allow them to make right on their wrongs and follow through, particularly when it’s a significant financial burden, if we just follow the letter of the law.”

Assistant City Attorney Zak Buruin jumped in and said, “I just want to emphasize one point, that this isn’t a question of letter versus spirit of the law there. The committee is exercising its judgment in this particular case, and that is within the letter of the law, and that is the judgment call here. So, I don’t want there to be any mistake about there being a choice between following the letter and the spirit of the law here in this particular case, they are compatible.” [I chuckled a bit at that because I would think one of the last things a city attorney wants is for a city representative to be implying on-record that they weren’t following the law.]

Alderperson Hartzheim said, “My concern is not that the best judgment is not an option. My concern is that we equally apply the best judgment, and in this particular instance, I’m not sure that we have successfully done that. I’m all for compassion, and I’m all for understanding caught unawares, but I am concerned that this puts the city in potential question of whether they’ve treated every applicant appropriately and fairly.”

The committee went on to vote 4-1 to recommend the license for approval with Alderperson Doran casting the lone dissenting vote.

[I would say at this point, there was no overall fair and just decision the committee could have made. The committee members had allowed the process to drag out for an inappropriate length of time all the while knowing that the owner was now putting forth a burst of excessive energy into trying to get the building repaired in the hopes she could keep her license. So had they voted against the renewal at this point there would have been some element of having strung her along and encouraged her to spend money and energy to achieve a goal that they then slam the door on.

On the other hand, the decision to grant the license renewal is very unjust to other business owners in the city who have not received special privileges or special considerate. And for one of those business owners, there will be a $10,000 price tag attached to the decision the committee made. Their decision prevented a $600 regular alcohol license from being entered into general circulation for other businesses to pursue, and instead left businesses having to apply for $10,600 reserve licenses.

Ultimately, it’s very easy to show compassion for people who stand before you and are able to tell you sad stories about their lives. But, one of the responsibilities of serving as an alderperson is to consider the wellbeing of the city as a whole and of the other impacted parties when making decisions and not just the situation of the one individual standing in front of you. I’m not convinced that happened during the handling of this issue.]

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1213519&GUID=345A9EED-1B5F-42A2-BEA5-10E78D9C49AC