A request from Cedar City leaders this week asking the Downtown Farmers Market to relocate from their current location at 100 West and Hoover Avenue prompted several of the event’s supporters to start a social media campaign calling on officials to rethink their position.
The Cedar City Downtown Farmers Market started in 2011 in collaboration between Red Acre Farms, Utah State University Extension office and the Downtown Retail Alliance. It has been open every Wednesday from July to October from 4 to 7 p.m., generating about $800 to $900 in revenue for the city, paid for by the vendors.
City manager Rick Holman sent Candace Schaible with USU an email Monday asking her if the market could relocate due to parking issues for nearby retailers that the City hadn’t been initially been aware of.
“They never wanted to shut us down, but they told us we needed to find another location. They initially gave us eight days and then agreed to give us two weeks,” said Symbria Patterson, co-owner of Red Acre Farms.
Several online posts on Facebook blamed State Sen. Evan Vickers of being the one behind the City’s request, an accusation he adamantly denies. Vickers, the owner of Bulloch Drug, a store that sits adjacent to the market, said he had several business owners come to him with concerns about the parking issue that he shared with the city.
“I have always been supportive of the farmers market and I still am,” Vickers said. “In fact, when the decision was made to allow the market in our parking lot a few years ago, I was the only business owner in the complex that supported it. … I don’t want the market to close or go away. No one wants them to close or move, but there some challenges with parking. I went to Rick Holman with some concerns that had been brought to me by other business owners to ask him if the City could help find a solution, not to close the market or ask the City to have them move.”
Part of the issue, Vickers added, is that in the past two years, several more businesses have moved in, adding an additional 80 employees.
“There is no place for those employees to park from Tuesday night when the market puts up the cones to block anyone from parking there to when it’s over on Wednesday night,” he said. “That’s about 36 or so stalls that are taken away during that time.”
Other posts accused the City of breaking their contract with the farmers market which gave them permission to use that site. According to Mayor Maile Wilson, however, there was never a contract, only a special events permit approved by the parking authority and paid for by each of the vendors. Patterson and Schaible both agreed with Wilson.
“They get a special events permit that allows them to sell their stuff and hold the market and that’s all there is,” Wilson said.
The mayor called the issue a miscommunication.
“The email was not saying you have to leave, only that that we needed to find some solutions,” Wilson said. “It was never meant to be, ‘You have to shut down or you have to leave.’ … Nobody’s against the farmers market. We support the farmers market, and we support the businesses there. The email Rick sent expressed concern about the parking issue and asked them if they could look into some other options. It was not saying, ‘You have to shut it down.’ It was just to say, we realize there is problem with parking and that there is an issue, so let’s come together to work out a long-term solution that is in everybody’s interest.”
Patterson and Schaible, however, both said they interpreted the email as asking them to move the market within two weeks, a request they said was not feasible and would force them to shut the whole thing down.
“At first we agreed to make the transition in two weeks, but as we got to looking at we just felt it wasn’t feasible for us to do that,” Patterson said. “We had already printed out the posters and spent the better part of this year organizing this event … It just wasn’t going to work for us to move it now.”
In one of his emails to Schaible, Holman offered several alternatives to the current site; however, both Schaible and Patterson said they had already spent a lot of time looking at different locations.
“A lot of time and energy, a lot of time, has gone into researching the best area for this farmer’s market and we just have felt that we are an urban market and this is the best location for what we’re trying to do. There are a lot of reasons why we chose this location,” Patterson said.
Patterson, Schaible, and Patterson’s daughter and co-owner of Red Acre Farms, Sara, met with Holman and Wilson Thursday morning at the City offices where they decided the market could stay at least for this season.
“They told us their concerns and we listened. They’re just doing their jobs which is to keep everyone happy,” Patterson said. “Then we told them our side, and they listened to us too. People don’t realize what goes into this and how much time we spend organizing it. We are a very organized market.”
Wilson said the group would meet again in November after the market closes to look at different options.
