Wauconda updating event laws for festival season

In anticipation of a busy festival season in the warm months ahead, the Wauconda board of trustees is working to update its village code to meet a growing demand for special event and liquor permits.

Currently, all special event applications are handled and approved by the Wauconda Emergency Management Agency. Last year, there were so many special events, city officials felt overwhelmed. Numerous road closures as a result of 53 special events over the summer clogged downtown traffic on a regular basis, according to Village Administrator David Geary.

“The code we've got right now hasn't changed for a hundred years,” he said. “But as the village grew and all these great events grew, we saw we needed to get a better handle on the process.”

Under the proposed guidelines, road closures will only be approved by the board for “charitable” public events — those hosted by nonprofit, religious, school or fraternal organizations. Private event planners will be able to apply for the use of park district spaces or the municipal parking lot.

Planners of large scale events — --specified as those events expecting 250 or more attendees — would also need to show proof of a general liability insurance policy of at least $1 million.

“This helps us protect ourselves and the planners,” Wauconda Trustee Chuck Black said.

Geary said the need for changes to liquor licensing regulation also became apparent last summer.

Private vendors can only serve alcohol at charitable or village-sponsored events with a $25 daily license under current regulations. The changes would allow liquor license holders to purchase $100 per event “portability riders” to serve alcohol at other events, with a limit of eight riders for each license holder per year. For charitable or village-sponsored events, the $25 daily license fee would still apply.

Don Kutinac, leader of the Wauconda chapter of the Illinois Moose Association, has several events planned for the summer and doesn't expect the changes to affect his planning.

“They're trying to cover costs, and the fees are pretty reasonable,” Kutinac said.

The board will vote on the liquor license changes at its regular meeting April 3, and the special event changes are expected to be settled by April 17.