Much of the discussion that took place in City of Appleton government meetings the evening of 06/04/2025 revolved around the alcohol license for Tandem Wine and Beer.
The Safety and Licensing Committee held a special meeting at 6PM to take up the request by city staff to not renew the license, and the Common Council later gave a final vote on it.
George Koenig, one of the partners in the LLC that owns the business, was recently convicted of driving with a prohibited alcohol content level (3rd offense) and also had a charge of possession of cocaine read into the record. Per the Police Department and the City Attorney’s Office, Mr. Koenig’s history of OWI was a disqualifying action substantially related to the business’ activity of selling alcohol and, therefore, made the business ineligible under state statute to hold a license unless he could provide evidence of rehabilitation. Given how recent his late offense was, he was not able to provide such evidence.
The Safety and Licensing Committee voted unanimously to recommend the business’ license be non-renewed.
In between the Safety and Licensing Committee meeting and the Common Council meeting, Mr. Koenig sold his interest in the LLC for $1 to his wife, Karter Thompson, who was the other partner in the LLC. The Common Council ended up voting 11-1 that the license be approved “subject to the following conditions: that the applicant provides formal, legal documents showing the transfer of ownership in the LLC, a revised alcohol license application, and any other documents required by the Clerk’s Office by June 30, 2025.”
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) cast the one dissenting vote. Alderpersons Martyn Smith (District 4) and Alex Schultz (District 9) abstained, and Alderperson Patti Heffernan (District 8) was absent from the meeting.
I’ve prepared transcripts of the Safety and Licensing Committee and Common Council discussions for download:
The two discussions about this item took around 2 hours total, but the basic facts were not in dispute. Mr. Koenig had two convictions for operating while intoxicated and one conviction for operating with a prohibited blood alcohol content level. It was not noted in the meeting but is noted in the court record that, associated with his most recent conviction, a charge of possession of cocaine was dismissed but read into the record. The court record indicates that he was sentenced to 45 days in jail and has had his drivers license revoked for 27 months.
During the Safety and Licensing meeting, he described the events leading to his charging and conviction thusly: “This latest OWI happened, I don’t know, maybe five years later, six years later [after his second OWI], and this wasn’t a situation where, you know, I was weaving all over the road or anything. I was pulled over in Fond du Lac, for—I had just purchased a new car from a dealership, a used car dealership, and it had these tinted windows, and they pulled that car over. And for whatever reason, it seemed like they thought I was like a courier or something, and eventually they asked me to use the breathalyzer, and I had a PAC. [Prohibited Alcohol Content]”
Mr. Koenig told the committee that he had substantially removed himself from Tandem, was working on other projects, no longer had a bartender license, and was no longer interested in being behind the bar at Tandem. He wondered if he could be given time to restructure the business and put it all in his wife’s name. “This is what we do in order to generate income for ourselves and our future. And it was unanticipated but well understood that there’s some things that I need to address and some changes that we may need to make in terms of the structure of ownership in the business, and we’re more than happy to do that.”
He also spent 20 minutes calling patrons of Tandem to serve as character witnesses. They all spoke highly of Tandem particularly that it was a comfortable place for old people to go to and that it seemed to be run responsibly, as demonstrated by the lack of demerits it had on its record. All of them indicated they had not witnessed Mr. Koenig engage in any irresponsible behavior. Peter Beckley, who had served as an Appleton alderperson back in the 70s, highlighted that he had seen Laurie Carter, the President of Lawrence University, at Tandem as well the chief executive officers of major corporations in the Fox Valley.
The Safety and Licensing Committee ended up voting 5-0 to recommend the license be non-renewed, citing the substantial relationship between Mr. Koenig’s criminal convictions and the sale of alcohol as well as the lack of evidence provided demonstrating rehabilitation.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) stated, “I feel like, legally, we have no other option, but I do hope that you’re able to transfer the business and so that it can—clearly your customers are find it a good place to go to, and so I wish you success with splitting that up and applying for a new license. But I can’t vote to renew this license.”
In between the Safety and Licensing Committee meeting and the Common Council meeting, Mr. Koenig consulted with an attorney and wrote up a contract in which he transferred all of his membership interest in the LLC that owned Tandem to his wife, Karter Thompson, for $1.
Although this was not an arms-length transaction, it was allowable under the circumstances because the business itself had no demerits against its license and the owner was an LLC of which Ms. Thompson was already a partner. It was not a situation where the business itself had accrued so many demerit points that it was facing license suspension or revocation; if that had been the case then any sale to avoid the loss of the license would have been required to be an arms-length transaction and would not have been able to be transferred to a family member.
After reviewing the document, city staff recommended that if the Common Council decided to renew the license that they attach a provision requiring verification that the change to the LLC had actually been completed. Assistant City Attorney Zak Buruin suggested a deadline of July 31, after which if the documentation was not submitted and the transfer completed the Council could take revocation actions against the business.
Another option that was available was to not renew the license given that, despite this written agreement, Mr. Koenig was still listed as an owner on all of the official documents pertaining to the business. Mr. Koenig and Ms. Thompson could then go through the legal steps necessary to reorganize the LLC and after that was completed Mr. Thompson could submit an application for a new license. The fact that she would be the only listed owner and that she had no record that would lead to a denial would allow a new license to be issued. The drawback to that was that it was not guaranteed that a license of the type Tandem currently had would be available.
Initially Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) made a motion to renew the license with the requirement that formal legal documents showing the transfer of ownership be submitted no later than July 31, 2025.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) did not like the July 31 deadline that had been suggested by staff. The current license was good through June 30, and she felt June 30 was a reasonable deadline for them to have reorganized the LLC and submitted verification documentation to the city. She noted that she and her husband had created an LLC in a matter of days, and she felt that 2 weeks maximum would be a generous amount of time.
She eventually made a motion to amend Alderperson Meltzer’s motion changing the deadline to June 30, 2025. The amendment to the motion was approved by a vote of 10 – 2.
However, when it came time to take a final vote on the now amended motion, 7 people voted in favor of it, 5 voted against it, and 2 abstained. Even though more people voted for approval than voted against approval, the motion failed because Council rules require 8 affirmative votes to approve an item.
Alderperson Van Zeeland who had put for the motion to change the date of the deadline was one of the people who ended up voting against the final motion. She explained, “I’ve had a crisis of conscience with this. I’ve really felt uncomfortable about making the changes and hoped that I could make an amendment that would make it palatable. But when we’re joking about where we are in amending something it—I just thought ‘This is ridiculous. Like, what I need to do is vote to not renew this license.’ And so that’s what I would encourage my colleagues to do.”
At this point it was around 8:30PM. The Council had been meeting for an hour and 20 minutes, and anybody who had attended the Safety and Licensing Committee meeting had been there for 2 and a half hours. The Council needed 8 vote to approve the license or it needed 8 votes to deny the license.
Mayor Woodford, as the chairperson of the meeting, stepped in and told the Council members, “I see the potential for a dynamic where you’ve decided as a body not to amend and approve the item, but then you head into a vote on the item as presented, and that fails. And there are no ties in these kinds of conversations. And so, this item needs to be resolved, and we will meet until it is resolved. So, I want to make that clear as discussion continues, because if you wish to make a change to the action, or you intend to dispense with the action as recommended by committee, I suggest that we move with expedience in either direction.”
Prompted by this, Alderperson Patrick Hayden (District 7) who had voted against renewing the license indicated that he would be willing to change his vote to “yes” to move the item along. He ended up making a motion that was substantially the same as what had been voted on and failed previously “that the Non-renewal be amended to approve a renewal of the license subject to the following conditions: that the applicant provides formal, legal documents showing the transfer of ownership in the LLC, a revised alcohol license application, and any other documents required by the Clerk’s Office by June 30, 2025 .”
This time, the motion passed by a vote of 11 to 1 with 2 abstentions.
It should be noted, however, that if the legal documents required are not submitted by the June 30th deadline, the license will not automatically be revoked or terminated. Rather, it will have to be brought before the Safety and Licensing Committee and the Common Council for further deliberation and a vote before it would be revoked.
[Back when the Safety and Licensing Committee was considering the application to transfer Tandem’s alcohol license from Mr. Koenig to Ms. Thomspon it was made fairly clear that while Mr. Koenig’s criminal history was not an impediment to transferring the license it would become an issue when the license came up from renewal given that he was still an owner of the business even if he was not the agent holding the license. At the time I thought to myself, “It seems like the only thing he could do would be to transfer the business to his wife in order to not lose the license.” I have no idea why he and his wife didn’t get on that right away instead of waiting until after the license renewal came before the Safety and Licensing Committee for a vote. I’m astounded by the lack of concern some business owners have about meeting the basic legal requirements to stay in business.
Out of curiosity, I would have liked some committee or Council members to have asked a few questions about the cocaine possession charge and the testimony Mr. Koenig himself made that the police officer who pulled him over thought he was a drug courier. I think it highly unlikely that the police officer in question pulled that suspicion out of nowhere. It suggests that there is a lot more going on with Mr. Koenig than what was mentioned at the committee meeting.
In this situation, I can understand, given the vote totals and the length of time they were there, why 4 Council members ended up changing their vote at the end. I don’t understand why 7 Council members were, right off the bat, willing to show particular favor to these people, one of whom has 3 OWI convictions and was suspected by a police officer of being a drug courier, and the other who is married to the person who has 3 OWI convictions and was suspected of being a drug courier.
These licenses are in short supply. It does not seem unwarranted to deny the renewal to someone when they clearly have issues and the legal aspects of business are not all in order. Let them get that in order and then get back in line for a new license while also giving other businesses a chance to snag a license. It seemed like the worse case scenario would be that if they weren’t fast enough in getting this switched over, a regular license might not be available and they would have to apply for a reserve license which costs $10,000, but if Tandem is really as well loved as it was presented as being and is frequented by high-powered business executives of the Fox Cities and sometimes graced by the presence of the President of Lawrence, they could figure out how to come up with $10,000.
I am confident predicting that should Mr. Koenig and Ms. Thompson not have everything in order by the deadline of June 30, if they claim they are making a good faith effort to get it in order, the Safety and Licensing Committee and the Common Council will bend over backwards to give them more time and allow the license to stay with Tandem.]
View full Safety and Licensing Committee meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1310538&GUID=ECF18EE8-8A5F-41FC-A73A-4B66C825B7FD
View full Common Council meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1289902&GUID=8303096B-1EB5-4694-B5B9-9BA1AC30FCDC
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