The city of Janesville will not be selling beer and alcohol at its Woodman’s Sports & Convention Center. Not directly, anyway.
In 2026, the city would collect up to $32,000 in what it calls “a user fee” from third-party Woodman’s Center manager Sports Facilities Management to run alcohol sales at the sports and convention facility.
The city plans $2,700 monthly fees as part of a management setup city spokesman Nick Faust says legally separates the city from alcohol sales at a city-owned facility.
Under the plan, Sports Facilities Management would use a subsidiary company it created, Sports Facilities Food and Beverage Wisconsin, to act as the Woodman’s Center’s alcohol agent. Faust says the fee arrangement is a move to firewall the city from having any direct involvement in the alcohol business at the Woodman’s Center. Under state statute, cities cannot be designated as alcohol agents at public facilities.
The city says in a memo the fee structure and agreements attached to it align with state statute and the city’s goals to find “diverse revenue opportunities and decrease costs to taxpayers.”
Faust says a flat fee arrangement would guard against public perception that the city is making moves to try to “boost” alcohol sales at a publicly-owned facility. He says the city and Sports Facilities Management will re-examine the fee agreement monthly to see if a $2,700 monthly fee is “appropriate,” based on the overall use of the facility.
The move faces a city council vote Monday, alongside arrangements that would designate a Woodman’s Center concessionaire and authorize Sports Facilities Management’s subsidiary to apply for a class B alcohol license.
That would allow alcohol to be served at sporting events such as Janesville Jets ice hockey games, and at events hosted at the Woodman’s Center’s convention hall space.
Later this summer, the city will consider formally awarding a class B liquor license for the Woodman’s Center.
The Woodman’s Center opens in September.
