Ordinance & License Committee - Regular Meeting

all right it is six o'clock so we will call to order the monday september 14th 2026 meeting of the ordinance and license committee all members of the committee are present so we do have a quorum uh first up is public comment is anyone here for public comment all right seeing no one we will move on to approval of the minutes Does anyone object to the minutes as they are attached in the minutes? Seeing none, we'll consider them approved by unanimous consent. Moving on to invited bartenders. First up we have Chelsea Gorsuch. You can come up to the podium. You can come up here to the podium. You're Chelsea?

Yeah.

And this is your agent?

My man, yes.

All right, can you come up and tell us your name, please?

Sorry, here.

My name is Maria Morales.

Okay, and you're the agent? Yeah. Okay, thank you. So Chelsea, have you ever worked as a bartender before?

Years prior, yes.

Okay. Just not in the last two years?

Yeah.

Okay. And how long have you worked for Buffalo Wild Wings?

Almost a year.

Okay. Were you aware of kind of her record before she? Yes. And no concerns from you about her having a bartender license?

No. With working with her, she's been pretty straightforward. She works well. She comes and does her job. We've never had any issues with her. She's one of our stronger people.

OK. Committee members, any questions?

Are you looking for a motion? If no one has any questions. I'll make a motion to approve.

All right. Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion to approve by Alderperson Helgestad, seconded by Alderperson Wigderson. And committee members can vote when it's before you.

Hey, there it is.

All right, that passes unanimously. Kelly, is this actually on the agenda for tomorrow? Anyone know offhand when our first council meeting is in October? Sorry, one second.

In my email, it said the follow-up was the next day.

Yeah, that's usually not right. Because we already have published the agenda for the council meeting tomorrow, so it will be the first one in October. october sixth sorry for the delay so that was approved uh... unanimously by the committee so that will go to our next council meeting not tomorrow on october sixth it was approved unanimously so it'll be on our consent agenda which means normally we don't talk about it uh... but any of the fifteen council members can They can decide they want to talk about it if they have concerns about you having your license. You can show up to the council meeting. You are not required to be there by any means. Otherwise, you should find out. You'll hear from the clerk's office on October 7th, assuming you get your license. Thank you for coming in. Moving on, Kelsey Marjolowski. Guessing she is not here based on the note, but I want to check. You're not, Kelsey? Okay. Then we will hold, yeah, we're gonna hold Kelsey's application to next meeting. So that means we have Ashley Rodriguez. Yeah, I glanced at the agenda, I didn't see it. Hi. Hi. Ashley? Yes. Yes, and you're the agent?

I am, Jalen Kanabe.

Thank you. So Ashley, you have been a bartender in the last two years? Yes. Correct? So did you take a break from bartending, or what happened to your last license?

no that's my only one the one that i just had previously before this one you had but yeah i had yes i had yep okay

So did you just not renew it? Is this?

Yeah, well, I didn't renew it in the period that I was supposed to, I guess, or like right away. Yeah. So I came in right after, and then I applied, and then I got a letter saying that it was going to be brought up to here, to the committee. It was just late.

Yeah, it's just late, okay. Because, yeah, it expires at the end of June. Yes, yes. Okay, thank you. So have you been working at Sunset Bowl recently?

She's been working at Sunset Falls since she was 14.

Oh, all right.

Sorry.

Thanks, Jeff. Any questions from the committee members? Jim, go ahead. My question is... Use your mic. Sorry. Yeah, there it is. Okay. Okay.

My question, the false proof of age, what was that about?

I had an incident where I got a fake ID taken away from me when I was 20 years old.

You had the fake ID?

Yes, I did. Very unfortunate. It was awful. They got my sex wrong. I was not a male.

That's how they caught you? Yes. Oh, my God. I appreciate your honesty. I will be honest about Any other questions committee members I'm guessing so just ask questions. So since that was in 2024 no issues since then no and any concerns as far as being a She'd been a reliable employee. I take it.

Yeah, okay.

I

I thank you. I do take my job very seriously.

We very much appreciate that. You ask for ID, though?

I always have. I always do. And nobody gets under me. Very good. I swear. Not even my friends could come to my bowling alley. Seriously. It's a deal.

Good answer.

So... I appreciate what you just said, but at the same time it rings a little hollow when you yourself were caught in violation of that very thing. So help help convince me to support your application here and reconcile those two things of you know your your job is to enforce that rule that you yourself broke.

Yes, I will say although I take this job very seriously because I have been there for so long and I do have this position to be able to protect our business the business that I get to like work with or you know I get to work for her and so I do I've had that like sorry I can't I I wouldn't let that happen to us and to me as a bartender as well, because although I did break that rule and it was very dumb to do so, I really have grown a lot from that. And at the time when I was in that underage age with other people that wanted to, let's say, drink and join the underage drinking at the time, I would not allow it at my establishment, at least. That's what I could do at least to help out with that.

And your, I guess the situation in which, because I'm looking at what's on your record here in front of us, the situation where you were caught with a fake ID also involved a violation of drinking?

Yes, when I was underage, yes.

Okay.

All right. Anyone else? Yeah. All right. So, I mean, yeah, I understand Alderperson Mannion's concern about the false proof of age, right, and the violation of absolute sobriety and all that. But given that you have had a bartender's license previously and not had any incidents, I don't have any concerns with you having a bartender's license. So I'll make a motion to approve your application. I second. All right, so we have a motion to approve by myself, seconded by Alderperson Everett. All in. Sandy, do you want to say something?

I just, for the record, I'm not going to support the application. The recency of the violations and the, I guess, the direct situation of the violations with respect to what you're tasked with in your job gives me concern.

Can I add something? So I will say I messed up. That was a bad decision. I called my boss at 7 a.m. and I told her I would still come into work after I had gone through something so traumatic, I guess, in that way. And she shut me down and she said, take a minute and just really focus on what happened. And I really appreciated that because that moment changed my life. Like, I don't, I stopped being around people that just decide to just drink all the time. I'm an adult, and I'm going to drink responsibly if I were to, but I really, I choose to stay away from that, because that was, like, the worst kind of thing that could have happened to me that actually made me see. Now I get to serve people responsibly, then make sure that these people are being served by somebody that already went through that, and I would not want to see others like that go through it, go through that. So I understand your concern, and I have grown a lot from that, and I continue to show it every day.

Okay, thanks. All right, so we have a motion and a second, so...

Call the person, Evert.

All right, so that passes four to one. So since this was not unanimous, this will go on our normal agenda for the next meeting, which will be October 6th. You are welcome to show up if you would like to be able to speak to whatever you would like to speak to, right? And your agent also, obviously. But this will go to a vote of the council members that are present on October 6th. So yeah, it's like I said, you're not required to attend if you would like to. You're willing to, you're more than welcome

Sorry, I will bring our you're able to you can I will be here Does she get caught do we do she get called up like this or does she have to like speak up?

No, she won't necessarily have to come up So typically the way this works right I voted for this so I would typically speak on your behalf look for members of the committee voted for it Alderperson Manion voted against it. This is why I think I think Ashley should have a license. Dan would likely speak as to why he didn't support it. And then if you were here, someone might want to ask you a specific question. Otherwise, someone who supported it would likely just kind of repeat what we heard from you and why we think you're a good candidate to continue to have a bartender's license.

Thank you.

If you have any questions, you can ask the clerk's office, too.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. All right, moving on. Other bartender applications dated the same. I'm losing my place here. Put those back where they belong. All right, other bartender applications. First up, we have Kelsey Hannon. Given what is on her record and the time since it has been, I will make a motion to approve the application for Kelsey Hannon. Second. So we have a motion to approve by myself, seconded by Alderperson Halgastead. And vote when it's before you. That is approved unanimously. Next up we have Samuel Struckel. And again, based on the offenses that are listed, I will make a motion to approve the license for Samuel Struckel. Second. Thank you. So we have a motion to approve by myself, seconded by Alderperson Helgestad. You can vote when it's before you.

Alderperson Evert?

Aye. I see it.

That is approved unanimously. So moving on to other applications. Jeff, would you like to speak about Walktober?

sure this is i believe our ninth uh... walked over event kind of a collaboration between the city and the chamber the chamber pulls the liquor license i'm also a member of the chamber but what happens is the idea is to get people into these independent shops some of our restaurants downtown and wisconsin statutes allow for these wine and beer walks and really they're walking around They're going to each of the different locations, and there's a little sample of wine or beer. The Dora will not be activated for this, so they have to consume them within the shop. They can't leave. We make sure to explain to every business owner not to let people out with the wine. And I think we're going to have to be a little bit more vigilant this year, so we have explicit instructions to them, because I think a lot of attendees might be like, oh, it's like Friday Night Live. I can go on the street. So we'll make sure we're... posting signs at the door, which we do every year. We print off a sign for them, get stuck on the door, so when people leave, they know to discard their sample. Like I said, we've had it for several years. It's a very popular event, and it's a good opportunity. We've got a lot of new businesses on here. If you look at the list, there's quite a few businesses that didn't even exist a year ago. But it's a good event for the Chamber, and then any proceeds, we end up using that money to cycle back into downtown for various promotions, marketing, and whatnot to help support our downtown.

How do you get tickets?

Online. You can get them through the city's website. It's got a link. Downtown Waukesha's got a link. Also Eventbrite, if you just put in Wauketober, you can do that. And like I said, it's a fun event. Each place, a lot of places go all out, like Chef Pam's. Every year they have different samples of soups and other things. And we hear from businesses. They do an uptick of business, not only selling stuff for that night, but these experienced retailers like Chef Pam's or Fisk Avenue, they get people to sign up for their classes. So it's overall a very successful event. We've never had any troubles with it. So hopefully that continues this year.

And tickets do sell out, right?

Sells out every year. We've got about 45 tickets left. So if you're gonna go, jump on them quickly.

Trying to get you a little free advertising. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, they go pretty fast. Like I said, we checked this morning. I think it was like 43 or 46, somewhere in there left.

For the two people who might be watching this video. Get a free advertisement for October. All right. I have a question.

Yes. Just for the folks at home, can you explain why the DORA wasn't used in this particular event?

We wouldn't really have, number one, the staffing and the resources to put out all the garbage and kind of do all the things that WDBA does for the DORA. And I think the idea is really to get people to stay in these, to mingle inside the businesses and support it. Also, it gets, you know, October, you never know what the weather's gonna be like. So we didn't really, this year we didn't think it was something we wanted to do. I mean obviously we could reconsider it in the future. And there's no real action outside. There's no bands outside or activities. So it's really focused on being inside as opposed to Friday Night Live where the focus is outside.

Any other questions from anyone?

We want to make a motion to approve all of these at once I'll make so move to approve the application All of them are all of them. I should say yes.

Thank you All right, so we have a motion to approve I'll read them in a second by elder person how the studs seconded by elder person ever the application From Summit Food and Gas Town for Class A Beer and Cider, Craft Bar Class C Wine License, Wireless Vision LLC, which is a T-Mobile store, secondhand article dealer license, and the City of Waukesha Chamber of Commerce Special Class B Retail License. You can vote when it's before you.

Alderperson Evert?

I keep losing that. And those pass unanimously. So thanks, Jeff. Thank you, Jeff. I'm sure it'll be a great event. One of these years, I'll go to it when I don't have small children who take up all of my time.

Good luck with that.

Yeah, so in 10 years, yeah, maybe. All right. Any communications from the clerk's office?

None.

All right. That being said, unless there's any objections, we are adjourned at 622. Thank you.