Hooray for July 1!

This afternoon the city council unanimously voted to issue a full intoxicating beverage license to Two Chez, and a non-quota license to Nordic Village.
Our license will be effective July 1st.
Thank you so much to everyone who has helped/supported this effort.
We truly believe this license will help our business flourish and help us to better serve our tourist business (and the locals, of course).
We'll continue to work with the state to change the quota numbers for future licenses. Look for updates here. We're hoping to meet with Rep. Ballweg tomorrow.

Non-Quota

The city council voted at the last meeting to move forward with two important steps on the liquor license front. First, they decided to issue a non-quota, FULL liquor license to the Green Lake Marina (opening in the next week, I think) based on the fact that the building complies with the non-quota requirement of seating capacity for 300. So the city, the fire department, the police chief, and the building inspector all went down to the building to eye and determine that it meets the criteria. This is going to be recorded by the city clerk. Incidentally, we pointed out the to city three years ago that the Nordic Village Building (formerly JT skewers) meets the same criteria (might even been more square footage than the marina), and they discussed FINALLY going to check it out. This is an important point. Read on..
The second important step is that the city issued a notice of revocation to Nordic Village/Agent Steve Sorenson (atty) based on the fact that the JT Skewers business wasn't open for 150 days in the license period. There's more to this story, but essentially, they have the right to a hearing to dispute the facts and defend their point. This meeting is being scheduled now.
But it looks like they can still keep a full liquor license based on capacity. So we're working with them and the city to get the 300 capacity recorded and basically swap out the license in hopes that the city will issue it to Two Chez.
There's been a lot of commenting on how 'We knew we would only get a beer/wine license when we opened'.. Just to comment back on that - we did know. We were also told by the city that they would be working to increase the quota. And beer/wine was okay for the first year or so. But the business is growing and people have expectations - especially tourists. Plus, a business doesn't have the same needs in it's sixth year as it does in it's first. Who the heck cares anyway. If we want to sell drinks we should be able to. That's what people do - they eat, and they drink.
And for the record, every week we have people walk in the door, and turn around and walk out when they find out they can't have a martini. It's hard enough to get new people in the door, and a real bummer when they walk out. And most of them comment on how ridiculous it is that we aren't allow to serve.
Next meeting with the city should be Monday.

Meeting Tonight

Thank you to all of our friends and customers who have expressed their opinions in support of our endeavor. Last week, the City administration committee voted YES to recommending that the council commence procedure to revoke the abandoned license from the Nordic Hill property.
There are a lot of rumors about a potential new business opening there. For the good of Green Lake, we hope more businesses open. The Green Lake Marina is hopefully going to open again this summer. Either way, we've been open for six years now. We've been involved in our community, our kids goto school here, and frankly, we need this license to keep the doors open. We are hoping that community support and honest dialog with the city will prompt action to support an existing business instead of the 'chance' of a new one. We'll see.
The meeting is at 7pm at city hall if you care to show up and express an opinion.
We've also invite our state rep, Joan Ballweg to attend, hoping she will see the importance of the issue and help direct us to a path that will get the state to pay attention to this quota situation.

One day at a time

So you'll see in the recent Green Lake Reporter that we approached the city, once again, prior to the annual renewal of liquor licenses.
Just an FYI - there is no technical difference between the non-quota and the quota license. It's just how the city tallies the numbers.
Next point in case: JT Skewers is closed. Last year we argued that the capacity of Skewers makes them a quota exception (300 seats), but the city can't decide if capacity is determined by fire code, number of chairs, what the owner says, etc. The state won't define it, because they want to give the city the control (at least that is our assumption). So that's one avenue.
The other is abandonment. This means that when a business is closed for a certain period of time, they lose the automatic renew right for the liquor license.
So the building is empty and has been since late December. It's on the market, of course, as it has been for years. It's on a major highway. Three restaurants have failed there(that we know of). So are we going to tie up a license for another year.
Here's the real issue: is the city in the business of issuing liquor licenses to sell real estate, or to provide a service to our tourists (and help a local business)?

Exception to Quota

Many of you must have noticed the recent news about a town called Saukville.
Population of about 7000.
They had the same license quota issue.
They got a bill passed (ACT 192) and signed into law via Mark Gottlieb and Sen. Grothman to suspend the quota law for a short period of time to allow the city to issue another license for this one business.

Apparently the thought behind this action was " a family-owned business was going to go bankrupt and 25 people would lose their jobs".
re: JS Online:
State Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) has said he introduced the bill to help one business, Messina Two Inc., 151 Progress Drive, Saukville, get a license to serve liquor in addition to the wine and beer the restaurant serves.

The bill is designed to help just one business because political reality is such that the Tavern League of Wisconsin would not allow a broader-based bill to get passed, Grothman has said."


First of all: good for them.
Second of all: aren't most of us family owned businesses on the brink of bankruptcy with a full liquor license.

Thanks to the Tavern League

Many of you have emailed us directly to ask about the status of this. Disappointingly, none of our representatives have publicly given an update, so here it is:
It's going nowhere due to the Tavern League.
That's directly from Mark Gottlieb's office.
We're researching information on the Tavern League's position, and keeping our fingers crossed that another angle turns up. We'd love to have the full license for this year's season. Our estimation is a 20% increase in revenues....