Town renews license for controversial bar again

Little Kohler Haus has had a liquor license approved twice in a month, and it has yet to use it.

That is slated to change on Friday, June 20, when owner Dave Cook plans to reopen the bar that has been closed for about a year.

The Fredonia Town Board last week approved the renewal of a license that will be in effect from July 1 to June 30, 2026.

Last month, the board, with a different makeup after the April election than the one that had denied the license three times prior, approved granting the license through this June despite multiple complaints from neighbors of the bar at 4810 Hwy. H.

“The place is usually a mess. There is garbage around. I’ve been woken up very many times,” neighbor Roger Meyer said.

“His staff likes to crank the jukebox after hours when they’re cleaning up. You hear them dumping the bottles in the trash containers and talking and yelling back and forth. The place needs drastic changes. I don’t think he should ever get his license back, period.”

Neighbor Steve Weyker said bands play past the 11 p.m. stop time, patrons urinate outside and motorcycles burn rubber and pop wheelies in the street.

Jenny Strohmeyer, who ran unsuccessfully for town supervisor in spring, said the bar makes more noise than the combined six bars in Newburg, where she used to live.

Cook told the board last month that he has made changes that will alleviate those issues at his bar.

“I’m not going to allow no one on that front deck after 10 p.m.,” he said. “No more bands. I’ll be there, not next door in my shop working on cars like I was doing. I’ll manage the bar correctly.”

Cook also said he upscaled the menu to draw a different type of clientele.

The bar, described on its Facebook page as a “small motorcycle fanatics dive bar that serves phenomenal food,” has been closed because Cook didn’t file paperwork in time to renew the liquor license. 

He said the issue stemmed from a simple error involving his renewal forms and a misunderstanding, adding that he had accidentally filled out the forms wrong and wasn’t aware that meant he had to immediately stop serving liquor after the renewal date.

Last July, the bar was raided by sheriff’s deputies and the state Department of Revenue, who found receipts that showed he was still selling liquor despite the fact his license had lapsed.

Cook pleaded guilty in January for serving alcohol without a license, a misdemeanor, in exchange for dismissal of a charge of buying liquor for commercial distribution from a retailer.

Two people living in campers on the bar’s property died from drug overdoses in the last couple of years. One was a woman who tended bar and had nowhere to go and the other was a man in between apartments.

Cook’s liquor license became an issue in the April town elections, and after three denials, two new supervisors and a new chairman gave Cook hope and another chance.

The votes last month and last week were both 3-2, with the same people voting the same way. Supervisors Jim Stemper  and John Depies voted against issuing the liquor license and newly elected supervisors Bob Eichner and Steve Jentges, along with newly elected Town Chairman Chris Janik, voted yes.

While some residents and elected officials said they were hoping to see the past month as a trial, town attorney Nathanial Jung said in May granting a liquor license is different than renewing one.

“This isn’t a trial period. Once you grant him this liquor license, he has a right to it. It’s substantially harder to take it away if something were to happen,” Jung said.

The two licenses cost Cook $300 each.