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Boyds resident Jonathan Sadd said that while he is done for the summer, he is not done forever.

The owner of Country Thyme Farm Market, a produce stand that stood along River Road every summer between 1999 and 2009, said he has packed up his business more than a month earlier than usual in light of slumping sales and a tough growing season. He blames the drop in sales on his 14-month battle with the State Highway Administration.

"It's a bureaucracy and a beast," he said of the agency.

Sadd, along with others, was told his long-standing market had to be moved from where it stood near Bethesda's Kenwood neighborhood on River Road in July 2009 when SHA officials began actively enforcing a law that prohibits such stands in state right of ways.

He appealed to stay for the season and eventually helped create legislation that permits produce vendors to sell on SHA property, but says the fight to obtain a permit has been too much for him.

His current location, which is on River Road near the Capital Crescent Trail Bridge — on county land — has brought him significantly less business than previous years and SHA officials have been slow to help get him back to where he was.

Sadd, who has a farm in Boyds, would not comment on how much he lost this season, but said it was 80 percent less than he took in while at his original location.

"It's just been this perfect storm," he said. "We're lost here, away from everything else, we started late ... and the weather has just not been good. I'm packing it up."

Sadd is the first person to request such a permit, said SHA spokesman Charles Gischlar. He said the SHA is still waiting for more information from Sadd and are still trying to assess how safe Sadd's original location is.

"Safety has to be our number one priority," he said. "We have to make sure that all highway users are safe."

The permitting process has not year been completed and his agency is still working out its details, Gischlar said.

Sadd said he has worked with the SHA as much as he can.

Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda said he too has been frustrated with the idea that the farm stand which inspired him to create Senate Bill 477 — the legislation that along with House Bill 611 set up the licensing process — still is not where it once stood.

"It is my understanding that the record shows they've had no safety problems there," he said. "It just seems like a shame they couldn't be there this summer."

Rob Ficker, who operated the Truffula Farm Market on River Road and Carderock Springs Drive from 2006 to 2009 in Bethesda — which was also forced to leave its location last summer — said the shutdown contributed to his decision to abandon local produce vending.

"I wasn't the only reason, but it didn't help," he said. "...It definitely did help me move on."

Ficker now builds butterfly gardens in Delray, Fla.

aruoff@gazette.net