July 1, 2014 – The Carmel City Council could act tonight on the controversial location and hours of the year-old Carmel-by-the-Sea Certified Farmers’ Market.
Councilwoman Carrie Theis, who together with councilman Steve Dallas convened a contentious workshop on the issue at City Hall last night, said that she and Dallas would make several recommendations for action by the full council, based on the feedback they’ve received from local residents and business people.
“Obviously its something the locals really enjoy,” Theis said of the market. “We’re trying to see how to not impact the merchants and keep it going.”
Among the recommendations that she and Dallas plan to propose tonight are to:
• Offer a 90-day extension of the existing contract with the market provider, West Coast Farmers Market Association;
• Change the market hours to 8:30 or 9am to noon or 1pm, from the previous hours of 10am to 2pm.
• In line with the market’s original guidelines, discontinue the sale of crafts and other non-food items;
• Discontinue the sale of prepared foods that are not made by Carmel-by-the-Sea restaurants or caterers and
• Offer a couple of alternatives on the most disputed topic of all—the market location.
At last night’s workshop, so many residents and business operators sought to be heard that some participants spilled out of the building and others watched the meeting from home via live Internet feed.
At issue have been allegations by many local businesses that the market’s recent move to Mission St. at Devendorf Park from the Sunset Center parking lot and the additional shoppers the market attracts are hurting their businesses. Some business owners say the new shoppers have cost them sales by causing traffic and taking up parking spaces in the city center. Others argue that the market’s offering of prepared foods and/or crafts has greatly hurt their business.
On the other hand, local businesses that the support the new location—which supporters say is necessary for attracting enough visitors to sustain the market—say the traffic problems are overblown and the new shoppers have actually helped their sales.
Tonight’s meeting will begin at 4:30pm and the market is expected to come up on the agenda after 5:15pm. Public comment on the matter will not be taken until it comes up as an agenda item.
The meeting can also can be viewed live on the Internet at ci.carmel.ca.us/carmel/.
About the author
SARAH WOOD—founding editor and publisher of Edible Monterey Bay—has had a life-long passion for food, cooking, people and our planet.
She planted her first organic garden and cared for her first chicken when she was in elementary school in a farming region of Upstate New York.
Wood spent the early part of her career based in Ottawa, Canada, working in international development and international education. After considering culinary school, she opted to pursue her loves for writing, learning about the world and helping make it a better place by obtaining a fellowship and an MA in Journalism from New York University.
While working for a daily newspaper in New Jersey, she wrote stories that helped farmers fend off development and won a state-wide public service award from the New Jersey Press Association for an investigative series of articles about a slumlord who had hoodwinked ratings agencies and investment banks into propping him up with some early commercial mortgage securitizations. The series led Wood to spend several years in financial journalism, most recently, as editor-in-chief of the leading magazine covering the U.S. hedge-fund industry.
Wood now lives with her family in Washington, DC, where she is a freelance writer and manages communications for Samaritan Ministry, an antipoverty and antiracist nonprofit that provides struggling Greater Washington residents with highly personalized and compassionate life counseling and coaching.
