The Common Council met 09/03/2025. One of the items separated out for an individual vote was the license revocation for Mr. Frogs. The Safety and Licensing Committee voted unanimously to recommend the license be revoked both (1) because the business had racked up at least 265 alcohol license demerit points in less than a 12 month period and the Municipal Code requires revocation when a business accumulates 200 or more demerit points in a 36-month period, and (2) because the committee determined the business was a disorderly and riotous house which, under state statutes, is grounds to revoke a business’s alcohol license.
At 4PM on 09/03/2024, 3 hours before the Common Council was scheduled to meet and take a final vote on the revocation, the license holder Vanessa Alvarado surrendered the alcohol license to the City Clerk’s Office. In light of this, City Attorney Christopher Behrens told the Common Council that there wasn’t any need to take action on the item. He recommended holding the item until July of 2026 which was the point at which the license would have expired. The Common Council voted unanimously to hold the license revocation until the first Common Council meeting of July 2026.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
At least 20 incidents took place in and around Mr. Frogs since Mr. Frogs first opened in September of 2024. Five of those incidents resulted in demerit points being assessed against the alcohol license of the business. In less than a year Mr. Frogs accumulated at least 265 demerit points, 135 of which were assessed in July of 2025. Appleton’s Municipal Code requires that a retail alcohol license be revoked when the licensee accumulates 200 or more demerit points in a 36-month period.
The Safety and Licensing Committee did not seem to hesitate in recommending that the license be revoked. However, before the matter was brought before the Common Council for a final vote, the license holder surrendered the license. This will make the license available for another business in Appleton to obtain.
In light of the surrender of the license, City Attorney Behrens told the Council, “My recommendation would be to hold the matter until July of 2026. That’s a time period when this license would have otherwise expired, just more of a procedural matter than anything else. But there isn’t any need to take any action on the report that came from the committee at this point in time recommending the revocation.”
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) asked what they would do with the item in July of 2026. Mayor Woodford explained, “[I]t would appear on the council’s agenda and would just need to be dealt with at that point, either accepted, voted down, or held indefinitely.”
It was not discussed at the meeting, but if the license had actually been revoked, per Appleton’s Municipal Code, no business located on that premises could be granted a license within 6 months of the revocation. Additionally, Ms. Alvarado would not have been able to obtain any other license for a period of 12 months. By surrendering the license, both of those consequences were avoided which would allow a new business to operate in the Mr. Frogs location as soon as that new business acquires an alcohol license and allow Ms. Alvarado to obtain a new alcohol license, should she so desire, without having to wait 12 months. This was the same action the previous owner of Speakeasy Ultra Lounge took when he was facing revocation of his license, and voluntarily surrendering the license allowed him to sell the business which was then able to continue operating after the new owner obtained a new license.
The building Mr. Frogs is located in is owned by Julia Nino Gomez Morales, a woman who has twice been denied an alcohol license herself, once for Mr. Taco on State Street and once for Mr. Frogs on College Avenue due to her close association to convicted drug traffickers and distributors. In fact, the only reason Ms. Gomez Morales applied for a license for Mr. Frogs herself is because, by her own admission, the previous managers of the business had been doing “illegal stuff,” so she decided to end their lease and hoped to open the business back up under her own name.
I say her license application for Mr. Frogs was denied, but that’s not entirely accurate. Rather, it was recommended for denial by the Safety and Licensing Committee, but before it came before the Common Council for a final vote, Ms. Gomez Morales withdrew her application. One month later, a new alcohol license application for Mr. Frog was submitted by Vanessa Alvarado.
[So, basically, what it appears to me is that the owner of the Mr. Frogs property has close ties with drug dealers and has twice rented the business out to people who have not been able to manage it properly or prevent illegal activities from occurring there, and now, with this surrender of the alcohol license, Ms. Gomez Morales will once again avoid accountability and is now free to lease Mr. Frogs to yet another irresponsible business manager.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1335556&GUID=6ECD5AF2-12E7-4E2B-969A-F176299B4E7A
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