How I Trolled Minocqua's July 4th Parade

And why the local government deserved it

Well, well, well--that was a heckuva week.

Here’s what happened in the 7 days leading up to me ultimately fooling the entire town of Minocqua and their police force into believing that I was going to shut down their 4th of July parade.

Friday, June 27
6 of my taproom customers and I were arrested and jailed at my Minocqua Taproom during my weekly beer tasting. The reason for the arrests? Rightwing newspaper publisher Gregg Walker, the most powerful man in Minocqua, was offended because he heard me tell my audience that I believed he was the ringleader of corruption in Oneida County. Over 7 squad cars and 20 police officers from four jurisdictions descended on us after he picked up his phone to complain--thus proving my point while violating our rights to free speech and peaceful assembly.

Saturday, June 28^th
I was released from jail 24 hours later, after only being let out of a holding cell twice during that time. I made this video while still reeling from the experience

Sunday, June 29^th
I documented my immediate recollections of being arrested and jailed in a very long essay, with the hopes of shining a light on everything that the Town, County, Sheriff, and Jailers had done wrong.

Monday, June 30th
I had to attend a bail hearing, where Oneida County Judge Sheik ordered me have "no contact" with Gregg Walker. Here's my video on why that is a violation of my 1st Amendment right to free speech, and why I think this county is rotten all the way up to its judges.

Tuesday, July 1
I called for a rally to stop Minocqua’s July 4^th Parade in retribution for the town’s continued harassment of my company and my customers. Let's just say most of my strongest supporters on social media thought this was a bad idea.

Wednesday, July 2
I made the case in this essay for the entire nation to protest Independence Day in 2025, because celebrating the Declaration of Independence after giving ICE, America's new gestapo, $100 Billion in new funding designed to take our independence away, is a joke. I also realized that I couldn't organize a safe protest in two days given that Sheriff Grady Hartman has hyper-militarized the police in Oneida County. Instead of putting anyone in harms way, I decided instead to troll Minocqua by amping up my rhetoric with details on how we were going to disrupt the parade--knowing that the town's officials would over-react and show voters their true tyrannical colors.

Thursday, July 3^rd
I published two emails that I had written to the power structure in Minocqua and Oneida County asking to de-escalate the situation (that they created by arresting my customers) days before the parade. I only published these emails after hearing crickets in response--which again showed that these guys simply are incapable of governing. I also published this interview I had with Dan Boggs, one my customers who had been arrested and jailed for simply being at my taproom the Friday before

Friday, July 4^th
I trolled the Town of Minocqua in a historic way. They called in cops from all over the state, surely hoping to provoke a riot that would enable them to crack some skulls, and I posted a scene from the movie "Braveheart," in which William Wallace inspires his men to go to battle. The local NBC affiliate showed up to videotape the "riots," and a local Minocqua man posted that the police presence was huge.

At about 3:45 pm, 15 minutes before the parade was going to start, my phone started ringing off the hook from numbers that were seemingly coming from Minocqua. I assumed they were the police asking where I was going to start the protest. Maybe a lawyer had told them to make these calls so they could tell a judge later that they tried to de-escalate the situation before beating us all up.

Knowing that any attempts at de-escalation were a sham 15 minutes before a planned protest, especially after they ignored my multiple pleas to de-escalate from days prior, I blocked their numbers and didn't pick up.

Instead, I got on a boat while the protest was supposed to be happening and posted a video of me singing "America" while drinking a Stella Artois.

(Note I drank a Stella Artois while filming ONLY because I would have been arrested had I gone to the taproom that day to stock up on my own beer. Also, had the cops seen me without any protesters in tow, my ruse would have been discovered. Thus I drank what my host had in his fridge.)

That's my story, and one that I will surely enjoy telling my grandkids--assuming I'm not stuck in one of Trump's concentration camps 20 years from now.

I'm also assuming that the Town of Minocqua spent an exorbitant amount of money on extra security that wasn't meant to protect me or my fake protesters, but ultimately to punish us while creating a scenario that would show probable cause for cracking our skulls.

Some have already suggested that I be forced to pay back local law enforcement for my little stunt. That's ridiculous for two reasons:

1. They never made the slightest attempt to contact me after I made two efforts--three days prior to the parade--to de-escalate the situation that they ultimately created by falsely arresting my customers the week before.

2. It was their choice entirely to overreact by calling in cops from around the state--ones that specialize in riot protection--simply because I called for a PEACEFUL PROTEST. This overreaction wasn't meant to protect--it was meant to escalate, intimidate, and punish.

This overreaction on their parts on July 4th followed an overreaction on their parts exactly a week earlier when they arrested 6 of my customers and me at the behest of influential right-wing newspaper publisher, Gregg Walker.

All they had to do then was to leave my customers and me alone. All they had to do over the last week was to respond to my emails to meet and simply end this fight. All they had to do over the last four years was to treat my business equally to all the other businesses in town.

Instead, they chose to spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars in litigation against me over the last four years, and spend tens of thousands of tax dollars last week bringing in riot cops from around the state.

At some point, I have to believe the voters of Minocqua and Oneida County--even the MAGA majority--will get tired of seeing their tax dollars wasted by the government's continued harassment of my company. Hopefully in the next local election, they'll simply say "enough is enough" at the ballot box and finally remove Minocqua Town Board Chairman Mark Hartzheim, Oneida County Board Chairman Scott Holewinski, and the out-of-control Oneida County Sheriff Grady Hartmann from office.

And at some point, I also hope that the citizens of this community will realize that Gregg Walker's corrupt influence on local government and the police is a threat to their own liberty. To stop him is to ignore him by unsubscribing to his paper and refusing to give him any money through ad sales.

Until any of this happens, I'm just going to keep making these guys look foolish by toying with their hyperactive amygdalae and selling more beer in the process.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with the Minocqua Brewing Company.

Together, one beer at a time, we'll continue resisting government overreach, police heavy-handedness, and local tyrants through the use of humor, ridicule, and satire.

Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC