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Group Sues Over Benefit Beer Sales
The director of a group protesting the Keystone XL pipeline is suing to recoup profits from beer sales during a benefit concert in September that featured Willie Nelson and Neil Young.
Photo: AP Photo / Dakota Aerials / Dave Tunge
Neil Young and Willie Nelson headline the Harvest the Hope concert in Neligh, Neb., Sept. 27. The event raised money for efforts to oppose the Keystone pipeline.
Bold Nebraska is taking legal action against the owners of a small restaurant that operated the beer garden during the Harvest the Hope pipeline protest in Neligh. According to court documents obtained by the Omaha World Herald, the suit seeks damages of at least $25,000 for what Bold Nebraska estimates was 12,000 cans of beer sold.
“We believe that money belongs to the organization to help keep fighting the pipeline,” Bold Nebraska Director Jane Kleeb told the paper.
Lloyd Meis, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Connie, responded that the organization’s estimate doesn’t reflect the actual sales from the show.
“I don’t know where they get their numbers,” Meis told the Herald. “We wrote them a check, they’ve never cashed it and this is the first we’ve heard of (a lawsuit.).”
Bold Nebraska has a different story to tell, claiming it reached an agreement with the Meises to track sales of $5 beer tickets, from which the organization would receive 25 percent of the total.
The Meises failed to produce an accounting following the concert, the lawsuit notes, reporting a profit of nearly $16,000 and writing Bold Nebraska a check for less than $4,000. The event reportedly cleared about $125,000, with 8,000 tickets sold at $50 each.