A D.C. judge issued a ruling on Wednesday afternoon that likely kills a nascent effort to revive Initiative 77, the voter-approved measure that sought to raise the base wage paid to tipped workers in the city.

Judge Neal E. Kravitz said the D.C. Board of Elections had failed to properly notify the public of a hearing last month where it approved language for a proposed referendum that, if passed, would have overturned the D.C. Council’s October repeal of Initiative 77.

“There’s simply no way for the court to know how the participation of others… would have affected the board’s consideration of the issues before it or the decisions made,” he said during a lengthy oral ruling he read from a yellow legal pad.

Though procedural, the ruling is significant because of its timing.

Proponents of the referendum had until Wednesday afternoon to submit more than 25,000 signatures to try and place the measure on the ballot. And while they did submit more than 35,000 signatures on time, Judge Kravitz’s ruling prohibits the Board of Elections from reviewing or certifying them.

That means the window of time the proponents had to call a referendum will close, and the Council’s repeal of Initiative 77 will become the law of the land.

Opponents of Initiative 77 in the courtroom cheered the judge’s ruling, while proponents of the referendum expressed frustration that their against-the-odds effort to collect the necessary signatures from D.C. voters had been derailed by a procedural error.

They pledged to appeal, but also conceded that their options were limited.

“It’s very disappointing that again D.C. voters voices are being suppressed because of the money, power and influence of the restaurant industry,” said Diana Ramirez of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, the group that put Initiative 77 on the ballot and then funded the effort for the referendum to revive it after the Council’s repeal. “They filed a challenge and due to a mistake that was out of our control our 35,000 signatures collected in six days will be thrown out.”

The ruling seems to bring to a close a fight over what tipped workers should be paid that dates back to at least 2016, when labor advocates fought to put a $15 minimum wage and tipped wage hike on the D.C. ballot. The D.C. Council eventually adopted the $15 minimum wage, but only slightly increased the tipped wage. That prompted the June vote on Initiative 77, which sought to increase the base wage paid to tipped workers until it equaled the minimum wage paid to other workers.

The Council, whose members overwhelmingly opposed Initiative 77 ahead of the June vote, easily overturned in October, drawing anger from advocates who said they were undermining the public’s vote. The option of a referendum to overturn the Council’s repeal was announced in late October, but the tight time frame to issue petitions to proponents caused a procedural error that ultimately doomed the effort.

“I’m a little down,” said Rev. Graylan Hagler, who served as the spokesman for the Save Our Vote campaign. “But there’s victory. The victory is this: the Council has never been challenged like this before. We did a challenge. And we’re going to continue a challenge. We’re trying to save D.C. from undue influence from business interests.”