Minocqua town board recommends Bangstad CUP denial to Oneida County

The Minocqua town board Tuesday unanimously voted to recommend for denial a revised conditional use permit (CUP) application from Minocqua Brewery Company (MBC) owner Kirk Bangstad. 

A previous CUP application from Bangstad, who has an administrative review permit (ARP) in place for his business, had also been recommended for denial to the Oneida County planning and development committee and it was, but Bangstad re-applied for a another CUP with revisions that would feature reduced parking and allow for a beer garden and space for, on occasion, a food truck. 

The county planning and development committee at a meeting last week voted 3 to 1 to send Bangstad’s revised CUP application back to the town on the basis there were enough changes from the previous CUP application to warrant the town board’s input and recommendation on the revised CUP application.

Oneida County planning and zoning director Karl Jennrich provided for the town board an overview and summary report of the new CUP application, which, for the most part, centered around using 2,184 square feet on the south side of the MBC building for a beer garden.

There would be fencing of different heights around the beer garden and dumpsters on the north side of the building. 

There would also be no entrance from U.S. Highway 51 and temporary use of bollards on occasion for a food truck which, it was noted later in the meeting, would reduce parking for the business that much more. 

On the subject of the food truck, town chairman Mark Hartzheim said later in the meeting the town had last looked extensively at the possibility of allowing food trucks on the island in 2018.

Among those to contact the town in opposition to food trucks, Hartzheim said, was Bangstad, who at the time, was president of the Island Business Association. 

Jennrich, during his opening and summary for the town board, said he had invited Bangstad to the town board meeting Tuesday but Bangstad “respectfully declined.” 

There was also no one at the meeting to represent Bangstad on the matter of the CUP application. 

“We received this (revised) CUP application on the 15th of May,” Jennrich said. 

Aside from the beer garden, food truck and reduced parking, it was established during Tuesday’s town board meeting the CUP application is, for the most part, no different from the first, although there was discussion later in the meeting about provisions for groundwater runoff. 

Pretty pictures

After Jennrich’s overview, Hartzheim asked town board members for input. 

“I’m kinda tired of this whole thing,” town supervisor Brian Fricke said and he referenced drawings included in with the CUP application and he also pointed a finger at Oneida County. “It seems like, ‘OK, we have ... pretty pictures.’ We’ve had pretty pictures before and it doesn’t get done and it seems like the county’s not doing anything. I know pictures have been going around of them (MBC) having outdoor service over there and there was gonna be some ticket, for lack of a better word for it, because he has outdoor service and that does not comply with the ARP. The dumpsters ... to my knowledge, that stuff’s never happened. Now, it’s been going on for two months. So, if he (Bangstad) just does this pretty picture and it gets approved and it goes to the county and they do whatever they want, seems like.”

Fricke briefly went over what the town has done over the course of the past two years to try and accommodate Bangstad in accordance with town and county ordinance. 

“It’s frustrating,” he said. “You know, we have people saying ‘How can we do this? Isn’t the county supposed to be doing it?’ It doesn’t seem like the county’s doing anything. I’m not sure what’s going on ... it’s just really frustrating.”

Town supervisor Billy Fried, elected once again to the town board in April after an absence of a few years and also an Oneida County board member, said for Jennrich, the situation “has been challenging.”

He said his concerns with the new CUP application, outside of the parking issue, was storm water runoff, which he said as far as he knows, Bangstad hasn’t complied with the ARP that’s been in place for his business.

“I sat in (on) a couple meetings of the county,” he said. “I do not agree with the reasoning of the committee for allowing this CUP to come back. I think if we as a town board, if we disagree with that reasoning, we make sure that’s in a statement that we would send to the county.”

Hartzheim said when “you go back to the beginning of this” at the town’s plan commission, parking spaces were shown in the original plans.

“We talked about what is required and what would reasonably fit here,” he said. “You’ve got a lot with limitations but what could be reasonably placed there for parking and we worked with them to come up with a reasonable parking plan that could incorporate the available parking on the space that’s there. We collaborated with them to do this.”

Hartzheim said a “fair amount of square footage” was waived by the town “to do what we could with what they had.”

“It’s very clear that he (Bangstad) didn’t know what he was purchasing here,” Hartzheim said. “He didn’t do any due diligence. He thought he owned twice as much land as he does. The strategy is rather than accept responsibility for that and work with us on accomplishing reasonable parking accommodations, he’s blaming anyone and anything for the situation he finds himself in. His providing a seemingly endless supply of misinformation and abuse to the public officials that are involved with this when all we’re trying to do is manage this in a way we would do no matter who the owner of this property is.”

Hartzheim said he didn’t have a problem with a beer garden and that it would be popular.

“But go find a property that’s suitable for that type of development,” he said. 

Following the discussion and vote, Jennrich told the Times he was looking to have a county planning and development committee public hearing on the Bangstad CUP application on July 12 in Minocqua. 

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].