A Hiawatha business owner has lost her lawsuit seeking a refund from a 2015 RAGBRAI event contending she was unfairly charged a $600 vendor fee by city leaders and event planners.
Jennifer Goodlove, owner of Farmer’s Daughter’s Market, 495 Miller Road in Hiawatha, may not have profited when the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa stopped in Hiawatha on July 23, 2015, but she expanded her business with more tents, portable toilets, bands and food sheds, according to the June 14 ruling by Linn County Magistrate Robin L. O’Brien Licht.
“The court finds (Goodlove) went beyond her regular business activities and therefore was appropriately charged a $600 vendor fee,” the ruling stated.
Goodlove did not prove her case by a preponderance of evidence, which was the standard of proof, O’Brien Licht wrote.
The lawsuit gained attention as Goodlove challenged rules used across the state for one of Iowa’s signature tourism draws, saying she was forced to pay for activities she was properly licensed to have on her private property just because the popular bike ride was passing through.
“Both RAGBRAI and the Hiawatha RAGBRAI Committee maintained that there are no extra fees whatsoever to operate your normal business operation the day RAGBRAI comes into your community,” RAGBRAI Director T.J. Juskiewicz said Thursday. “So if a restaurant or bar opened that Thursday in the same fashion that they do every other Thursday, there would have been no additional fees or permits needed.”
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