Oneida County zoning revokes Bangstad permit

The Oneida County planning and development committee voted 3-0 to revoke the administrative review permit (ARP) for the Minocqua Brewing Company last Wednesday and appeared poised to deny his bid for a separate conditional use permit when the county’s corporation counsel abruptly advised the committee to adjourn the meeting.

The committee did so, and the conditional use permit (CUP) hearing is scheduled to resume Wednesday, Aug. 9. That permit would allow Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad to operate an outdoor beer garden at his Front Street property.

The abrupt adjournment was bizarre, taking everyone by surprise, with county corporation counsel Mike Fugle claiming that another party was scheduled to use the room at that time. However, that group had moved into a side room and it was not immediately apparent that the committee had to adjourn before voting.

Meanwhile, the committee had earlier revoked Bangstad’s ARP because of repeated violations, making it illegal to operate the business, but on a Facebook post following revocation, Bangstad said he was heading to court and would remain open as long as he could.

“We now have to dive fully into intense legal action, and my company’s top source of revenue, our Tap Room in Minocqua, has technically been shut down,” Bangstad wrote. “I will try to stay open as we’re filing appeals, but I’m not sure how long that will last.”

As he has done throughout the process, Bangstad wrote that he believes he is being targeted for his political views.

“I think what has been done to my company is wrong, and I believe they did this to stop my company’s public activism that helped elect Governor Evers, State Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz, and to stop our upcoming lawsuit to rid Wisconsin of its parasitic private school voucher system,” he wrote.

For its part, the county zoning committee scheduled the revocation after a year-long investigation that tallied 80 separate items and scores of potential and alleged permit violations by Bangstad and his company.

Did it to yourself

The permit revocation hearing was itself a resumption of an earlier hearing that had been abruptly adjourned after acting committee chairman Mike Timmons had repeatedly asked Bangstad to stay on point with his remarks. 

At the outset of the resumption of that hearing, Bangstad said it showcased the political vendetta against him.

“What happened last week when I was not allowed to defend my business when I was at risk of being shut down, in my belief, was a complete breakdown of due process and once again shattered my trust that this committee is governing in good faith with regard to my company, since I believe you have such personal and political animus against me and are planning to revoke my ARP regardless of what you hear today with, by the way, only three out of the five members of your zoning committee attending, which barely makes a quorum,” he said.

Bangstad said he had amassed public support to testify on his behalf.

“I still want to bring these longtime community members and second homeowners to speak on my behalf to show the press because I don’t believe I’m going to get a fair hearing today,” he said. “But I want to show the press and those tuning in online that this is not just one guy fighting an intolerant municipal government, but an actual growing group of people convinced that my business is being targeted by my political participation and activism.”

A majority of the crowd — mostly from out of town — did support Bangstad, but multiple speakers also opposed him.

For his part, zoning committee chairman Scott Holewinski told Bangstad after the revocation vote — and after Bangstad had referenced the committee taking away his permit — that the vote had nothing to do with politics but with Bangstad’s ongoing refusal to follow the conditions of his permit.

“First of all, Kirk, we didn’t take away your license,” Holewinski said. “You did it by your actions. You did it. Quit blaming everybody for your problems.”

Holewinski said that no one had forced Bangstad to agree to go along with six parking spots in the ARP: 

“You applied for an ARP, you got an ARP with six spots on it,” he said.

Holewinski also pointed out, by having Oneida County zoning director Karl Jennrich reread correspondence to Bangstad, that, if Bangstad had thought the conditions of the permit were unfair, he had the right to appeal to the county’s Board of Adjustment. He did not do so.

“I’m trying to treat you the same as everybody in Minocqua and you keep coming back with this rhetoric,” Holewinski said. “‘They forced me. Oh, I got zero parking.’ I’m getting tired of listening to you go around in circles on this stuff.”

Throughout the process, Bangstad has said the parking requirements for his location are unfair, and he has said the town routinely recommends parking waivers for other businesses.

“But what is happening with the zoning code, as evidenced by 174 parking exemptions in the town of Minocqua, is that they’re bypassing the actual code in place in order to make a town that’s more attractive to tourists,” Bangstad said. “So your exception policy is now become the policy and the actual minimum parking requirements are being willy-nilly not done. So I think you should not ding me on these exemptions.”

Town recommends denial

But in a letter to the zoning committee asking the committee to deny Bangstad’s CUP application, town chairman Mark Hartzheim, writing on behalf of the town, said the town follows a consistent parking policy.

“If any comparable business told us they didn’t want to provide any public parking, the town would take the same position against it,” Hartzheim wrote. “When comparing apples to apples, there are no similar businesses in the town of Minocqua that have been approved to provide zero customer parking in Minocqua.”

The exceptions are made under precise and specific conditions, the town asserted.

“That type of exception is only considered where the pattern of development has building footprints lot line to lot line,” Hartzheim wrote. “The new proposal put forth by the applicants will require an even higher number of customer parking spaces.”

Bangstad repeatedly recites false claims that the town holds some personal bias or animus against him, Hartzheim continued, but the town board has handled the case the same way it would for any other prospective owner of the property. 

“There is no evidence to support the applicant’s claims that the town has a vendetta or personal  political animus against him,” he wrote. “The town’s position on enforcement has nothing to do with the politics of the owner or the political sign the owner displayed years ago or simply a dumpster. The hyper-partisan and divisive rhetoric we see at the national level has apparently created an opening for conflict and entrepreneurs at the local level who seek to benefit from blurring fact to fiction.”

Hartzheim contended that the property simply has inherent limitations.

“What became very clear early in the process is that the owner of the property never performed the due diligence to comprehend the area of real estate he was purchasing and now seeks to retrofit an outdoor beer garden and other outdoor services on the property via a new permit,” he wrote. “If the owner is committed to install an outdoor beer garden and other outdoor services, he should pursue the property suitable for the intended use, not force the county to allow him to shoehorn something in after the fact due to the lack of awareness of what he purchased.”

Finally, the town cited the history of repeated violations of the ARP as grounds for denying the CUP. The town also argues that Bangstad should not even have been able to reapply for the CUP because it was less than a year after his previous CUP application was denied — the length of time the county requires for reapplication of a CUP for a similar project.

“The town believes that the permit was not eligible for reapplication and it’s clearly a clearly a similar project in size, scope and design and remains in conflict with ordinance provisions,” the letter stated.

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.