The News: A Wisconsin judge ruled that a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR) may continue. Two small business owners, represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) are seeking to mitigate the harmful impacts of Wisconsin Act 73, a special interest driven law which will put them out of business.

The Quotes: WILL Deputy Counsel, Lucas Vebber, stated, “This is a great win for our clients and for anyone opposed to government-sponsored cronyism and economic protectionism in our state. This legislation is nothing more than an attack on their businesses to limit or eliminate competition–and those facts will finally come to light through the legal process. Our clients will get their day in court.”

”WILL Client and owner of Farmview Event Barn, Jean Bahn, stated, “I am not in this to become a millionaire, we are just trying to get by. Hosting low-cost weddings in our barn allows us to pay for upgrades to our home and farm equipment to keep our farm up and running. This legislation was designed by special interests in Madison to limit competition, and that’s not right.”

Additional Background: On Friday, a circuit court judge denied DOR’s attempts to dismiss the lawsuit completely, allowing our key claims against Act 73 to move forward. 

Act 73, adopted last year, provides that, effective January 1, 2026, a “venue, location, open space, room, or establishment” which is accessible, held out or made available “to the public for rent for an event or social gathering” is a “public place” under Chapter 125. As “public places” under the law, businesses like our clients can either close, not permit alcohol consumption on their premises during events, obtain a liquor license or get a “no sale event venue permit.” 

Liquor licenses are not only expensive, but even if our clients did want to obtain a liquor license there are practical issues which make that difficult. They are operating under conditional use permits with their local governments. They would need to completely upend their business model, and would lose their ability to allow guests to supply their own alcohol. The other option would be obtaining an Act 73 “no sale event venue permit,” which would allow private event venue customers to continue to carry-in and consume alcohol (but only beer and wine) and would also limit the private event venues to hosting a total of 6 (beer and wine only) events per year, no more than 1 event per month.  

In our legal arguments, WILL lays out several claims that state law, as amended by Act 73, violates our clients’ rights as guaranteed by the Wisconsin Constitution.