Last week the Greene County Supervisors voted to deny an alcohol permit for a craft brewery to have a booth when the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) comes through the county on July 23rd and 24th.

Back Pocket Brewery wanted to have a booth south of the Scranton city limits to sell alcohol to RAGBRAI riders as they head from Sunday’s overnight stop in Denison to Monday’s overnight stop in Jefferson. The Supervisors voted unanimously to deny the permit application at their meeting on Monday, June 4th. Board Chair John Muir talked about what led to the Board’s decision.

“The logistics of getting the bikes through the county (and) the more stops, the more pressure there’s going to be on controlling the traffic. We’ve got destinations to get them to and the first one is Scranton after they get into the county. The second one is to the overnight stay here in Jefferson. We didn’t want to do anything that would slow down the flow. We thought, ‘Let’s keep the traffic moving.’”

At their most recent meeting this past Monday, Steve Linn, a representative with the brewery, as well as the Iowa Craft Beer Tent, addressed the Board on their concerns. Linn said the RAGBRAI has specific “shut-down” times when vendors along the route can no longer serve alcohol or food. He pointed out one specific area is in Scranton, where everyone is supposed to be out of the city and heading to Jefferson by 5pm on July 23rd, which means their booth will be shut-down by 4:30pm. He added that if a county requests it, they can provide their own security to supervise the booth, so that local law enforcement can be free to watch other areas of RAGBRAI. Linn noted that they have 14 licenses approved or in the process of being approved for RAGBRAI this year in other communities and Greene County was the only one that hadn’t approved their permit.

Muir indicated this past Monday that the Board will discuss the topic at a future meeting and may make a different decision at that meeting.