Scheduled Zoom meeting, only Milwaukee area beer vendors & guests invited. Sorry.
Topic: 2nd annual DITS organizational meeting Time: Dec 9, 2020 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada) Join electronically (from computer, smartphone or tablet) or use the phone-in option.
Meeting ID: 995 6341 9936 Passcode: {refer to the material we sent you, or go to theseats@yahoo.com or mainoffice@drinksintheseats.org & ask for it} There is no charge to download Zoom or to attend meeting. Capacity for everyone!
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You will then be prompted to enter the following: Meeting ID: 995 6341 9936 If it (then) asks you for a “participant i.d.” you can skip right over that by pressing the # key, you should be able to skip over this request on the computer options as well. It’s not needed. Passcode: {refer to the material we sent you, or go to theseats@yahoo.com or mainoffice@drinksintheseats.org & ask for it} Remember, no charge!
It seems like Milwaukee Mayor, Tom Barrett has completely forgotten about the jobs & economy spikes which come and are required with large crowd sizes.
I, myself have alluded to in the past whether or not if it’s worth it for all these restrictions to be implemented. The thing is, Mayor Barrett will just go on the air and talk like he’s not even concerned about what’s going to happen to those such jobs! Remember, unlike other surrounding communities who went ahead and decided to pull their own restrictions after the May 13th State Supreme Court ruling that overturned most of the state restrictions, Mayor Barrett did not choose to pull the city’s restrictions. His arrogance on the matter has hurt licensed drink servers city wide. Also, festivals and convention centers have reported to have lost millions just to name a few of the victims. While the restrictions on crowd sizes in Milwaukee have since been relaxed a little, it is still a non-sufficient number to allow for fans in person at sporting events. Also, as far as allowing for fans at major league sports facilities, it’s not just a local decision as baseball itself has yet to allow for fans in person, Mayor Barrett could very well serve as another roadblock if he refuses to relax the crowd size restrictions heading into next year.
Overall however, there are just too many talking heads out there right now. It seems as though whenever the rarity of a large gathering does a occur, false numbers and stories do quite often blossom from advocates of restrictions as an attempt to benefit from their own personal interests or because they simply want to delay things from becoming back to normal. This was obvious about the recent Sturgis rally and don’t be surprised if you see it be tried with the college & pro football games that allowed in-person fans just this past weekend.
But going back to Mayor Barrett, some didn’t agree with his idea to install a trolley downtown, and I do not agree with the way he is handling the coronavirus! View our past link below &/or call Mayor Barrett at Milwaukee City Hall (414) 286-2489 and encourage him to lift the restrictions!
No Big Ten football this fall, and football WITH fans in attendance (& likely not many when it does return) may be in question when this conference does reinstate its highest revenue sport. But when UW sports do return in a full Camp Randall Stadium & other facilities, how about selling beer in the general seating area? Why isn’t the Univ. of Wisconsin already selling alcohol in its main sports facilities anyway? Other schools in the conference already allow it.
It would be up to the chancellor of the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, and her name (if you don’t know) is Rebecca Blank. Dr. Blank has held this position since May of 2013. So take a guess on what side she is on regarding expanding the alcohol sales at Badger football games (again, IF you don’t know)? She’s against it (you probably knew that already with her being the chancellor for now over 7 years and yet no alcohol expansion where other schools continue to do so). Chancellor Blank has said through a spokesperson; “The university believes that there is already an atmosphere of energy and excitement around Badger game days. The addition of alcohol to general seating areas isn’t needed to improve that experience and could detract from it for our students and fans.”.[1] So, what about AD Barry Alvarez, let’s go to Barry! Unfortunately, he is underneath the chancellor, but nevertheless, what is Barry’s opinion? Well, believe it or not, almost seven years ago, he said he wouldn’t even bring up the matter to Wisconsin’s administration. But in spring of last year, he had said that making beer available (in the seating area of the stadium) could encourage tailgaters to not keep tailgating where they don’t arrive into the game itself until midway through the 2nd quarter. There is no known rhetoric of Alvarez or his staff continuing to promote the idea within the administration however.[2]
How much in revenue would beer sales bring to the school? That remains to be seen, but the Univ. of Minnesota says they’re averaging 1.3 million dollars a year in sales at their football games since they started selling beer stadium wide in 2012.[3] Ohio State in 2017 reported $1.23 million in PROFIT (not revenue) at their football stadium in selling beer. Their arrests however went up 50% over the year before (their first year selling beer stadium wide) but their profit was also up 5.6% from that debut year of 2016.[4] Hmm, hope they used some of that profit money on hiring more security officers.
The thing is here, beer brings in revenue, revenue and schools go together like…. . Attendance has also been slipping lately for Badger football games. There have been reports of heavy numbers of no-shows as well (tickets were sold but “they didn’t make it in”). So this combined with other factors such as; other Big Ten schools giving the go ahead to sell alcohol at games; room for improvement at the turnstiles; our state being recognized as a leader in beer drinking (same with the university); and, now most importantly, all this lost revenue with no collegiate sports this fall. Wouldn’t instituting beer service throughout the seating areas of Badger football, basketball & hockey games be a no-brainer? It should’ve happened already.
Baseball is back! I’m sure you’ve seen the celebratory posts and pictures all throughout your social media feed as of late. As a matter of fact, they’ve looked so genuine you’d get goosebumps thinking about going to Opening Day. But that’s the drop-off right there, an opening day in Milwaukee without fans would be like (let’s see?) a bowling alley without bowling lanes.
It all comes down to the City of Milwaukee and their reopening phases which they have just on Friday (6/26) announced they will move to phase 4 effective July 1st which the part concerning fans at sports facilities is listed below:
Gatherings in Homes or Public Venues – Must be the lesser of the three: 1) 50% of the total occupancy of the location, 2) one person for every 30 square feet or 3) 250 people. Source: City of Milwaukee Health Department [1]
Now because fans will not be allowed to attend baseball games when the “long layoff” ends in about a month, you can blame it on the league?[2] Blame it on the team? Blame it on the Governor? Blame it on potential liability issues (but you can always do that)? But the one subject TO blame it on; Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett! Mayor Barrett has been noticeably ruling on the side of arrogance ever since the coronavirus crisis began. For a while there, it seemed he had forgotten about there being an economy as he only recently allowed the reopening of restaurants & bars. Now he’s in a little bit of a rock and a hard place. The city’s phase 4 guidelines once listed that a maximum of 100 people could be allowed for public gatherings or places of public amusement. Now, it has been adjusted to a maximum of 250 people when the city officially announced it will be going to phase 4. One would have to think it’s to accommodate for the upcoming Democratic National Convention which was just officially scaled back considerably in size this past week. He could feel apt for a larger phase capacity but likely that will be contingent as to what kind of now delegate-free crowd the August convention is expected to bring. Baseball fans might want to watch for that number closely.
Any American who follows the news right now realizes that coronavirus cases are surging again. That includes Wisconsin as of late. Among talk of the reason for exactly why for the latest surge, is because states have been reopening too quickly, hence for concerns about the falling economy as a result of the initial rounds of stay at home orders and lockdowns. While that certainly makes a legitimate argument to loosen restrictions as a means to get people back to work thus helping the economy, some jobs such as the ones we help promote are that of stadium workers of which many have yet to get to work an hour this year. For all we feel, the lockdown still hasn’t let up at all as there are no games with fans to serve to! This would have to suggest that since restrictions have indeed been loosened up (all 50 states now), then why not just remove all the restrictions, that way hardly any jobs would be shut down, because of restrictions that is. Currently, bartenders at many taverns may now work, but in-seat beer vendors, ushers, concession stand attendants, etc. etc. etc. cannot. If we all were to just let ourselves go ahead and forget about the restrictions like certain governments, people seemingly down south or the courts here in our state have done so, then perhaps we can get to that elusive but eventually inevitable herd immunity stage if no vaccine were to come and beat it to the punch. Bottom line is, we have games to work.
[1] Limits subject to change based on CDC guidance
[2] CBS Sports It’s unclear if MLB will have a league-wide policy for allowing fans to attend games. The possibility of having people in attendance was only mentioned one time in the league’s 101-page health and safety protocol:
If and when play resumes with fans, Clubs must adhere to all requirements of the 2020 (Best Stadium Operating Practices) unless MLB specifically provides otherwise.
No fan policy seems set in stone, and a lot could change in the weeks before Opening Day. MLB reportedly had 40 players and staff test positive for the coronavirus last week.
The restrictions have come. “Social distancing, social distancing, social distancing!”; “Stop the world!”. There have been questions this week on whether if these restrictions are going too far, not to mention if eventually we find out whether these will work? So let’s think about it, when President Trump stated, “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” One would have to think, when exactly do we decide to stop saving a patient’s life and all that? After all, these precautions we are taking is indeed killing the economy. What if, again, WHAT IF we were (all the Governors and everyone else) by going off of the notion of the “mild cases” being 95%, to just let this thing “play itself out” and the world goes on as normal? Could the hospitals go into bankruptcy? Even if they did, Congress could just address to a small & detailed area (that being in the prosperous medical field) on where to send “stimulus money” instead of the highly debated allocation of the just signed two trillion dollar stimulus package as to who is getting a fair or an unfair deal?
Speaking of unfair deals; restaurants, bars as well as tanning & hair salons are either being required to limit their service (thus causing layoffs & severe revenue shortages) or being required to shut down altogether! Yet here, any factory is”exempt”, which means they can run business as usual, sure it does say in Governor Evers’ mass gathering restrictions that social distancing in these exempt places must be implemented “as much as practicable” it reads. But is that good enough? I would say there is a difference between manufacturing things and serving food that was just cooked (or prepared if it’s a salad or such) in open air as opposed to manufactured products or the prepackaged food available in grocery stores. There is a restriction in grocery stores for instance that the self serve doughnut display must now be shut down. The question would be here, if these types of restrictions are not good enough (sure, the experts say we won’t know for sure for a few weeks) then why are there restrictions on anything? Put yourself in the restaurant or bar owners’ shoes and what your’ response would be if you were asked if this is all worth it? You know their revenue numbers are just dropping. I know probably the best way of doing restrictions is a complete lockdown. Like don’t leave home period. Have the military get involved by delivering rations, an orderly way on transferring patients, etc. Now THAT would be restrictions! But don’t go half way! Don’t say it’s ok for grocery stores, gas stations, liquor stores, factories and such to be open while placing the said restrictions on restaurants, bars, salons & others! It should either be have restrictions for everything or have no restrictions at all. Really!
The coronavirus (COVID-19) is serious, sure. Is it good to take precautionary measures, absolutely! But exactly how serious is thing, really! In our state of Wisconsin, there so far has been one case of the virus and that person has recovered. In fact, here’s the world death toll link https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ 3,652 out of 107,490 cases have died and 60,914 have recovered, and it says that 42,924 are currently infected, in other words, “pending”, and by doing the math, the numbers come out exactly to that number of 107,490 cases (as of 3/8/20). Go ahead and use that above link to keep track on the updates.
I guess for one, medical experts have yet to get a handle on it, that’s one thing. It’s also a good thing to take precautionary measures. The United States seems to have better sanitation laws than two of the countries I have been to and that’s South Korea and Mexico, I’ll be willing to back that by remembering the odor of it’s outside air that makes you think that you are at your local aluminum recycling plant. So by saying that our country has seemingly higher stringent sanitation guidelines, you can’t blame us for being careful. But how careful? Taking precautionary measures such as washing hands, not shaking hands, to make sure “(it) doesn’t get brought over here!” is fine. Then you have to wonder how strong this virus is? Believing for one, that medical experts are still working on getting to the bottom of it, there IS no guarantee right now that the virus cannot get more lethal. It also could just be what it is now, meaning that the 85% recovery rate will not get much lower (it could even get higher) and will start to subside once a vaccine is available, and remember, symptoms at their worst is nothing more serious than a fever (according to the CDC), sure, no picnic but it definitely can be a recoverable illness. It also does not help that politics are being applied either. Did our President really need to hold not one, but two “stand alone” press conferences about this? OR, did some media outlets have to use a negative spin regarding those aforementioned press conferences?
Then you start to look at the workers in the hospitality industry; concerts, conventions, sporting events, etc. The NBA administration is talking about possibly playing games with no fans. There has been talk that actual paper cash might be spreading the virus. How about for the stadium to let it’s in-seat beer vendors take cards?
It’s good to take precautions, sure. But what exactly is going overboard? Doing things to deprive workers the opportunity? You’re going to see outbreaks every time such as poison ivy at a camp, food poisoning from a restaurant. Not too much of a death rate there? Let’s just not go to the extremes.
The Democratic National Convention is approaching (week of July, 13th) in “Brewtown”, we’ve known about that for more than a year now. What many should’ve also known was that with the Republican controlled State Senate & Assembly and a Democratic National Convention, there would be political snags as far as getting things done for the upcoming big event.
Ever since last year when Milwaukee was awarded the 2020 DNC, it was assumed and believed to be that bar time in Milwaukee & other southeastern Wisconsin cities would be extended to 4am during the week it’s running. This has been a now common practice that past national political conventions of both parties have enjoyed. That being the respective host city’s bar times being extended to 4am locally for it’s convention week (Tampa, Charlotte, Cleveland & Philadelphia have all done it). So our state legislature would have to get involved for any kind of change here in that regard, but so far, nothing has really moved on the issue.
It was first reported on from the Milwaukee Business Journal earlier in January that the committee in the State Assembly (State Affairs Comm.) where the temporary law change enabling for a 4am bar time is needed to get started and is chaired by an individual who has a lot of experience, knowledge and pull involving alcohol issues in the state of Wisconsin. That being State Representative Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander), a former president of the Tavern League of Wisconsin and a current supper club owner as well.
Swearingen has been quoted that he will not take up the proposal of a later bar time unless a change in the law happens involving one of his’ interests. That being putting requirements on a rather new breed of alcohol establishments, which are wedding barns (we’ll discuss below). It has now just came out according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that Swearingen is in the process of drafting up a bill of the said law change allowing for a temporary 4am bar time also which will include many demands to it, quite a few of these demands are not even related to the wedding barn issue but rather in addition to it such as the issuing of alcohol permits at State Fair Park and at the Road America race track (they’re going to have to hurry, the legislature adjourns in March). For those of you who followed Wisconsin politics going back to the days of Chuck Chvala & Scott Jensen controlling things around 2000, this sounds a lot like the Midwest Airlines tax break trying to get approved. Remember all the partisan politics involving that one?
Tavern owners where thousands belong to the Tavern League of Wisconsin (trade association) are upset about the fact that “wedding barns” (used to host wedding receptions, wouldn’t you know it) are permitted not to hold the same licenses and are not mandated to adhere to regulations that every tavern in the state is required to do so (yet, many of these same said tavern owners are also in favor of this 4am cutoff time, internal conflicts happen rather often within the heavily populated Tavern League). The enforcer on this is the State of Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue. Where the sticking point comes here is that Rob Swearingen who has a well documented past & present of being directly involved with alcohol interests and with him chairing the committee the bill needs to go through, he is in strong control at this time if there will indeed be a 4am alcohol cutoff during July’s DNC or if the same old 2am bar time will remain. So something has got to give for this thing to happen.
Where the embarrassment to our state comes here, and you don’t have to be a genius to realize, is that Milwaukee is known for their beer and Wisconsin is known for its drinking (hence the Drink Wisconsinbly shirts among many other things), but unless (now you can say) a small miracle happens at the state capitol, convention goers won’t be able to enjoy 4am bar closings while they are at our city unlike they took almost for granted from conventions they’ve attended in cities before. However, one may look at this as merely a reflection on how Wisconsin has become known for it’s partisan politics and how it’s been a swing state for many years now, wasn’t that what brought the convention here in the first place?
Sure, they came up with a chicken sandwich, finally. A couple weeks ago, myself along with my daughter & her friend were driving through the south side of Milwaukee and noticed a Popeyes Chicken restaurant that did not appear to have a long line of cars in it’s drive-thru considering on how popular their new chicken sandwich has been. Not only that, but the fact that it was about 3pm on a weekday and thought that would be a good time to “sneak” in and try the sandwich while their drive-thru nor their dining room appeared to be busy.
So we pulled into the drive-thru and only noticed one car present and that was at the outside menu board (with the two-way order speaker & all that) in back of the building. So we wait thinking that it won’t be long (believing the customer in front of us at the menu board was in the process of ordering) despite the fact we saw no brake lights on from that particular vehicle (red flag). Without counting, at least a few minutes have passed and no action. I heard no ordering, no voice from an employee coming from that aforementioned speaker at the menu board and the car in front of us remained stationary, so I begin to politely yell out of my window asking if the drive-thru is even working? Noone answers me. So a few more minutes go by, say a total of five minutes since when we first got there, then my eighteen year old daughter suggests that we should just leave. I then proceed to yell out of my car window for a second time if there is indeed a problem with the “drive-thru”? This time, the female employee working the drive-thru answers me through the speaker with a rather rudely sounding response saying that she’ll be “right there!” while sounding like this was not the first time with the same customer present (or so she thought) that she will be “right there”. I then waived to the customer in question (that same car parked by the menu board with her brake lights off the entire time) as an apologetic gesture as we then promptly left the fast food restaurant. Oh by the way, there was also one car sitting at the drive- thru WINDOW we did notice as we had to pull around to get back on the street to leave.
It really should go without saying that someone as who we witnessed* just parked at the fast food menu board in the drive-thru for AT LEAST five minutes is unacceptable, period. Even for understaffing, PERIOD! (They should pay more). It would have to suggest that the Popeyes’ top management might be telling their employees to “stall” in order to create long lines of people waiting working off of the introduction of their new chicken sandwich in a successful attempt to garner free advertising through extensive media coverage. We are not blaming the actual employees for this as we are a proponent of the “Fight for $15” movement, this is Drinks In The Seats®. I did finally get to try the sandwich (from a friend who brought one over) it was not bad in my opinion granted it was probably made about an hour earlier. You do get a big piece of meat with that and it may have tasted better had I would’ve consumed it right away a la a “Krispy Kreme” original glazed donut. But the whole point here is, that hype might have once again prevailed over product even in this instance and at the customer’s expense.
*Image was recreated from what we had witnessed in the Popeyes Chicken drive-thru
Your’ team makes the playoffs, hooray! The MLB playoffs begin after a 162 game regular season. “So let’s go to the game! When is the game? I need tickets!” Well they have to win the wild card game (on the road) or the season is over.
Since 2012 when the wild card game was first implemented in Major League Baseball, road/#5 seed teams are (a rather impressive) 8-6 in the “win or go home” single game. Reminding, the “go home” part of that means that the players go to their’ respective homes until spring training (or so). No home playoff games for the respective team’s markets to enjoy unless they win the wild card game on the road. Not to mention the missed revenue and wage opportunities for stadium employees.
So why not making the wild card round a “best of three” series? It could happen, it should happen. It could be done in various ways. But the series itself should start by having game one of the best of three be held in the home park of the team with the lesser record (the #5 seed). This would then guarantee both teams (if you’re following along) a coveted home playoff game. With that being said, games two and a potential game three of this series would then be held at the park of the higher (#4) seeded team. All three games could be scheduled on successive days or maybe include a day off after game one.
So, when after the last day of the regular season should this expanded series start? Currently, the last day of the regular season is on a Sunday. With no games being scheduled for the next day (Monday), a day that’s traditionally been reserved for tiebreaking or essential make-up games. I guess they CAN get rid of the tiebreaking games, but that could diminish the exciting races in the waning days as well as dealing with prior broadcasting rights. It’s conceivable these series’ could start on that Tuesday provided a team slated for the wild card doesn’t get there by playing in multiple tiebreaking games.
So what about the #1 seed team waiting in the wings to play whoever comes out of the “wild card round”? How about giving them a week off? Before you start to think about how that would be a big layoff that could rust all players of that team, then look at this. Below are the six teams that got 4 whole days off while waiting to play the winner of the wild card game and how they fared in the “best of 5” division series against the wild card winner:
’12 No “4 day layoff”
’13 Boston – WWLW (Won World Series)
’14 Washington LLWL
’15 St. Louis WLLL
’16 Chicago Cu. WWLW (Won World Series)
’17 Los Angeles Do. WWW (Lost World Series)
’18 Boston WLWW (Won World Series)
Both leagues “generally” rotate (just not “every other year” as shown above) between which wild card game gets played first & second resulting with the second wild card game (usually played on Wednesday) meaning that that particular league’s “A” division series would start on Friday resulting in the team with the best record in that league hosting game one of that series (the other league’s wild card game is held on Tuesday with that game’s winner starting it’s division series on Thursday). Overall, the winner of the wild card game has won 6 of 14 of their next series’. You can see up above, when there is a four day layoff, wild card winning teams went on to win 2 of 6 division series’. Teams with a three day layoff have won 4 out of 8 division series’.
So having the “A” division series begin the Sunday after the final regular season Sunday resulting in six days off for the #1 seed team would not seem to rust the team nor create a competitive disadvantage. With that extra time, maybe a day off could be inserted before the “best of three” wild card round in the event of tiebreaking games to avoid a team having to seemingly travel to a new city immediately after playing a critical game for several days in a row. The players were even mentioned in an article last year as being in favor of it, but management was against it which was surprising [1]. But even most importantly, it guarantees a home playoff game for every team’s market that makes the playoff$.
Also, if pushing the start of the division series back a couple more days for an actual “wild card series” makes you wonder about when the start of the world series will be? It could start on a Friday instead of the current Tuesday start. For one, those games would avoid Thursday & Sunday pro-football, and with it being pushed back just three days, it SHOULD be done right before the freezing weather comes, depending on where you live.
The Milwaukee Milkmen, an independent minor league baseball organization recently started playing in their new stadium called Routine Field located at “The Rock Complex at Ballpark Commons” located at 76th St & Rawson Ave. in Franklin, WI. (slideshow below)
I recently attended a game and came up with a quick & spotty review of the facility, our second such review*. For one, and yes we are naturally bias on this, but there are no in-seat beer vendors. In fact, there are no in-seat vendors period. I was told by an executive at this new park that in addition to the concession stand, bar, club and beer garden drink service they have now, they do plan on adding some portable beer stands but didn’t sound in favor of including in-seat beer vending. To get this off of our chests now, this park needs beer vending! After all, we are Drinks In The Seats!
The capacity of this park is 4,000 and about 1,000 people were in attendance when I was there. It is not near a freeway though it is adjacent to Loomis Road (Hwy 36), where it’s location is beneficial for the south half of Milwaukee County as well as western Racine County to endure some rather cheap entertainment.
Staying on the subject of “cheap”, this is an affordable way of taking in a professional baseball game in a new & clean ballpark without the big league prices! On site parking is free, a seat up front is less than $15 and obviously less if you prefer a “back” seat (and THAT’S even close). The concession stand there will make you think the place is being ran by Kopp’s Frozen Custard (located up the road) because of the workers’ white drive-in style uniforms, but it’s not. In fact, that’s the theme there, Milk Men. It’s impossible not to notice the old fashioned milk theme by looking at almost any stadium personnel. Even their hats are authentic. The only thing missing are in-seat vendors selling milk in glass bottles, oh ok we’re done!
The concession stand did involve nice workers, you could get a hamburger the size between that of McDonald’s & Kopp’s (closer to Kopp’s in size) with a large quantity of fries and a large soda for $11. One concern of that stand though, is that more points of sale could be needed in the event of larger crowds. They did have a nice looking & well stocked liquor bar built in to the wall just behind the home plate stands. During the game itself, less gimmicks appeared between innings which keeps fans from saying to themselves “uh, isn’t there supposed to be a game?”. The production of the game kept in rhythm with bumper music being inserted in between pauses in action. The ballpark also had other sections for parties and such as well as a merchandise store located just inside the left field entrance. So with the exception of what was mentioned up above, Routine Field is a hit! See picture slide show below.
Other phases of this complex including more entertainment and residential space will soon be added. *Fiserv.Forum “quick & spotty”review on our Drinks In The Seats Facebook page.
Ryan Strnad- Managing Member/Lobbyist for Drinks In The Seats®