Oneida County zoning suspends Bangstad permit for 90 days

Concluding that Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad has still failed to meet many conditions of his conditional use permit to operate an outdoor beer garden at his Minocqua Brewing Company location, the Oneida County zoning committee suspended the permit for 90 days on Thursday, June 20.

The suspension is to give Bangstad time to fulfill the conditions of the conditional use permit (CUP), including paving his parking lot. In the meantime, he is not allowed to conduct outdoor business, though his retail store can remain open.

Bangstad could open his beer garden sooner than 90 days if he meets the conditions. However, if he operates outdoors during the suspension, the committee will immediately reconvene another revocation hearing.

The early portion of the meeting was tumultuous, with Bangstad erupting after accusing the town of Minocqua of extortion and being told by zoning committee chairman Scott Holewinski to stick to relevant matters. Holewinski recessed the meeting briefly as Bangstad refused to comply with Holewinski’s directive.

After the recess, Holewinski attempted to read a court order from judge Michael Bloom that Bangstad must comply with the committee chairman’s directives in conducting the meeting and to stick to relevant issues. 

“No person attending today’s public hearing is entitled to say anything unless recognized by the committee chairman,” Holewinski read from the judge’s order. “… No person attending today’s public hearing is entitled to continue speaking if the committee chairman directs them to discontinue. Mr. Bangstad is not entitled to speak on matters that are not typically relevant for any length of time, even if it is less than three minutes.”

Bangstad began interrupting, saying his remarks were relevant. Holewinski again tried to quiet Bangstad, to no avail, and ultimately ordered Bangstad to leave the meeting.

Bangstad refused, and Holewinski repeated the directive. Bangstad again was defiant.

“I would like to see you make me leave the meeting,” Bangstad said.

At that point, Holewinski summoned a sheriff’s department officer and told Bangstad he was disrupting the meeting. Ultimately, Bangstad said he was leaving on his own accord but left the room delivering expletive-laced remarks accusing the county of sabotaging his business.

Calmer waters

With Bangstad banished, the rest of the meeting followed protocol, with Bangstad’s attorney, Fred Melms, arguing on Bangstad’s behalf on issues ranging from the cost of construction placed on the property without a permit to the placement of two pavers in an area that was required to have full coverage with pavers to Melms’s argument that the CUP really didn’t require the parking lot to be paved, even though it has been a central demand from the beginning.

“I think when we’re looking at this conditional use permit, we have in the last couple of weeks seen some pretty substantial compliance on behalf of the Minocqua Brewing Company,” Melms told the committee. “They had only recently been able to agree with the town for use of the driveway over the pork chop. And since that time, Mr. Bangstad has certainly put a lot of effort into trying to get everything in order.”

Among other things, Melms said, Bangstad had changed the traffic flow to ensure that the flow was one way and safe. He had also delineated parking spots by spray painting gravel and provided parking for the disabled.

Melms also said, in reading the requirements of the permit, he did not believe the permit even required a paved parking lot.

“I don’t read this to require pavement, and I see that pavement markers are required but without pavement it would seem like you wouldn’t need those,” he said. “And the gravel is in fact marked with parking spaces when paving the parking lot is not a condition of the CUP. It would seem very difficult to suggest that the Minocqua Brewing Company needs to pave the parking lot.”

Bottom line, Melms argued, there has been, if not complete compliance, fairly substantial compliance.

“I think it’s been technically complied with,” he said. “I believe that there are certain issues here where we’re talking about technical compliance and you’re maybe talking about a technical violation that would maybe be a better opportunity for compromise or discussion as to how we can make all this work rather than immediately jumping into this meeting.”

But staff and committee members disagreed. Zoning director Karl Jennrich said the lack of compliance was more than technical, especially the argument that the CUP did not require paving the parking lot, or that spray painting gravel would meet the requirements of parking conditions.

“I think the intent was crystal clear that it was supposed to be paved with pavement markings,” Jennrich said. “It was submitted by the applicant, it was a storm water management memorandum.”

In no way did the committee intend to have gravel marked with spray paint, Jennrich said. 

“I mean how would the committee expect gravel marked with spray paint to even hold up after a rain event or some type of event?” he said. “Again, the applicant spent considerable amount of money to hire a company to do this plan. And again, part of that was pavement, in my opinion.”

Pavement was also required for their stormwater system to work, Jennrich said.

“There is an under drain system that has been installed, …, which allows it to go into the ground and then the overflow is supposed to go to East Front Street,” he said. “But again, to convey the water to the inlet structures, you need pavement.”

As for Melms’s contention that the traffic flow had been redirected to make it one way and safe, Jennrich said that was not the case, observing to the committee that Bangstad had posted two small “Do Not Enter” signs.

“But [in our] pictures, we show traffic in this way and that way, it’s all over,” he said. “So the one-way traffic as posted is not working.”

Melms had also argued that the construction permit was not needed because the cost was below $2,000 for the construction, including a fence, which would exempt from the permitting requirement. But committee member Bob Almekinder, a builder by trade, contested Melms’s assertion that the fencing construction cost less that $2,000.

“I did a rundown,” Almekinder said. “I went and checked local lumber yards and the cost of material. I measured your fence and I assumed that, even just without the labor, your materials are over $2,500. This plan here calls for an eight-foot-high fence on the back, a metal decorative fence on the front. So I added up the footage and I took local lumber yard prices and just the materials come to over $2,500.”

Holewinski also took issue because the entire beer garden area was to be covered in pavers, though Bangstad was claiming compliance but placing only two pavers.

“On option three [which was proposed by Bangstad], it specifically shows that,” he said. “For you to sit there and tell me that you think it’s in compliance by putting two pavers on the ground because it wasn’t spelled out, it’s kind of ridiculous.”

Earlier, Jennrich reported that there was no evidence submitted showing how the beer garden with permeable pavers was installed.

“The only evidence that staff observes was that wash rock was installed over gravel with two permeable pavers,” he said. 

Later, Jennrich stressed the point: “Gravel is not pervious and again, why this is an issue, I mean from my perspective and the town’s perspective, you just don’t slap some wash rock on the ground and put pervious pavers on the top.”

One by one the committee tallied the unfulfilled conditions, and especially what it considered the most important one — that all the conditions would be met before Bangstad opened the outdoors beer garden for business.

In the end, though, the committee did not revoke the CUP but issued merely a three-month suspension.

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