Downtown bar’s liquor license in jeopardy over underage drinking issues

The City of La Crosse looks to revoke the liquor license of a downtown bar police say is violating the city’s alcohol licensing laws by allowing in and serving underage people at the bar.  

At a special council meeting Thursday afternoon on February 20, members will consider taking the license for the Latino Bar and Grill at 115 5th Avenue South.  

Police said it’s known among college students as a “freshman bar” and that is “almost exclusively underage.”  

In a letter to the council, Lt. Jon Wenger of the La Crosse Police Department said that owners and staff fail to prevent underage people from entering the bar and drinking. 

It also said that despite conversations and training efforts by police with staff, “Latino Bar has demonstrated little improvement since opening and continues to enable an underage drinking environment.”

Officers were called to the bar more than 120 times since it opened in February 2022 and issued over 320 citations to patrons, Lt. Wenger’s letter stated. 

The letter said that in 2023, an employee, Pedro Leal, had alleged that officers were targeting the bar, didn’t perform bar checks anywhere else, and that their efforts to get people out of the bar hurt the business.

WIZM News has reached out to the bar for comments but haven’t heard back yet. We’ll update this story with their response. 

A summons for the agent of the bar, Marissa Acosta Perez, to appear before the city’s Judiciary and Administrative Committee on Wednesday, February 19 was included in the information given to council members.