A Guelph woman will soon resume repairing bicycles at her home thanks to an outpouring of support from the community.
Mary Rife has been fixing and selling bikes out of her garage for the last 14 years. In 2024 alone, she said she sold 296 bikes and raised over $25,000. That money, she told CTV News, goes to the Stephen Lewis Foundation to help people in Africa living with HIV and AIDS.
But all that work came to an abrupt halt in October after the city’s bylaw department received a complaint.
Rife previously told CTV News a bylaw inspector said she couldn’t run a business from her garage, couldn’t display bikes on her lawn and she couldn’t have a advertising sign on her property.
Rife refused to simply give up, and instead applied for an official variance that would allow her to continue her work.
Speaking to Guelph’s Committee of …