The Oneida County Planning and Development Committee voted to revoke Minocqua Brewing Company’s administrative review permit.
The county held another hearing on the issue this week.
The Oneida County Planning and Development Committee’s decision effectively shut Minocqua Brewing Company (MBC) down.
However, Kirk Bangstad, owner of the brewery, vowed “I am open for business until somebody puts a padlock on my business, because what they have done is wrong. And we will sue in federal court eventually, it just takes a while to prepare a case.”
The Committee argued that Bangstad’s repeated violations of the terms of his administrative review permit (ARP) left them with no other option than to revoke his permit and shut him down.
Bangstad called the ARP a “poison pill” that was “negotiated in bad faith”, which the county denies.
Bangstad believes that the predominantly conservative county treats him differently due to his outspoken liberal politics.
“I think that the issues that they revoked my permit on are simply serving beer on a concrete stoop and not having a covered dumpster,” said Bangstad. “I don't think they realize what revoking a thriving permit to do business will look like throughout the entire state of Wisconsin and in the nation.”
After hearing public comments, committee members voted to revoke MBC’s permit and then deliberated on the brewery’s conditional use permit (CUP) for an outdoor beer garden and food truck.
Just before 5pm, committee members were prepared to deny the permit for the beer garden and food truck, but their legal counsel recommended that they wait until the next meeting to vote and explain their reasoning in more detail to avoid legal ramifications.
Bangstad objected to the ordering of permit discussions.
“They should have voted on the CUP first. If they would have voted that and said, yes, all of these violations would have went away,” said Bangstad.
Scott Holewinski is the committee chair.
“The beer garden could operate if he would have just followed the rules” said Holewinski.
On August 9th, the committee will meet again to decide on the CUP.
Earlier this week,the brewery filed a restraining order against the Oneida County, but that was dismissed on Wednesday morning, according to Bangstad.
