Seating capacity qualifies business
By Angie Landsverk
The city of Waupaca found a way for Danes Hall to get a Class B liquor license.
The business qualified for an above-quota license.
The common council unanimously approved issuing such a license to Danes Hall when it met on Nov. 5.
All council members were present.
“As you know, about a month ago, there were three applicants for one license,” City Administrator Aaron Jenson told the council.
Danes Hall was among the applicants.
That license ended up being conditionally surrendered, he said.
In September, the council voted to give the license formerly held by Crystal Mentzel to BC Royalton.
Mentzel ran Mentzel’s Club 22 at 1822 Royalton St.
Bob and Christine Faulks own the property.
Through the process, the city saw that Danes Hall could benefit from having a Class B liquor license, Jenson said.
Working through the state statutes, the clerk’s office found information about the above-quota license.
Above-quota qualifications
When a municipality has issued licenses equal to or exceeding its quota, it may issue an above-quota license for:
• A full-service restaurant with a permanent interior seating capacity of 300 or more people.
• A hotel with 50 or more rooms for sleeping accommodations that either has an attached restaurant (seating capacity of 150 or more people) or a banquet room where banquets may be held for 400 or more people.
• An opera house or theater for the performing arts operated by a nonprofit organization.
Danes Hall’s qualification was being a full-service restaurant with a permanent interior seating capacity of 300 or more.
Jenson said both the city’s building inspector and fire chief measured Danes Hall to determine its seating capacity.
They determined the capacity to be 420 people, “so well over 300,” he said.
City Clerk Sandy Stiebs said state statutes do not define a full-service restaurant.
Her office checked with the state’s Department of Revenue (DOR) office in Appleton regarding that question.
A restaurant is defined broadly as “any building, room or place where meals are prepared or served or sold to transients or the general public, and all places used in connection with it,” Stiebs explained.
She said a municipality must decide if the business equals a restaurant and then be fair and consistent in its interpretation.
When her office asked if the meals have to be prepared there, the DOR said they do not have to be.
They may be catered and served.
That helped the city make it determination, Stiebs said.
She said a municipality may issue one Class B liquor license for every 500 people.
What complicates that number is the fact that over the years, the city annexed in bars and gained liquor licenses from them, she said.
Stiebs said the city currently has 12 Class B liquor licenses.
Then the DOR came up with the “Reserve Class B” license, which was based on the city’s population in 1997.
The city then gained one license. H.H. Hinder currently holds that reserve license.