Market Updates

The people directing the Saturday Market have announced their decisions, which at the moment include having the market open every other Saturday from Easter weekend (April 23) to Labor Day (Sept. 3).  They hope to get permission to have it every Saturday, but the Parks Board has not yet been heard from on that matter.

They have noted that the County's regulations about the selling of prepared food are sufficiently onerous that there may be some considerable diminution of such sales, although the County is okay with one's selling baked goods for charity causes other than one's own pocketbook.  Further, they have stated their displeasure with the selling of used goods which will only be allowed twice during the summer (once early and once late) but only if one's used goods have been vetted with the administrators.  (It's okay: I was pretty much through with selling my used CD's, but I take the implied insult.)  And they have encouraged the growers of vegetables to come forth.  If the weather doesn't sometime improve, there will be passing few vegetables of any kind around this summer: at least home grown ones.

This banning of the used goods seems to me a bad idea, not least because the market last summer had some difficulties with having enough vendors in the first place.  The administrators seem to think that there are vast numbers of people with exquisite original (make it, bake it, grow it) goods here on the Point and, furthermore, so exquisite that they will command the attention of vast numbers of buyers who will want to make a foray cross border to get what cannot be obtained more easily in greater Vancouver.  I doubt it.  My guess is that the  used goods (flea market/thrift shop) have the best chance of being a going concern for such a market.  That is, that you could use that as the base and work the other stuff up around it.  But I didn't volunteer to be an administrator and, though that point of view has been put forward, the decision went the other way.  We shall see.

I'm doing my part by taking my eight grown-from-seed potted kale plants outdoors to adjust to reality.  I have told them that they are very cool weather plants and they should do their best.  If all goes well, I could have a few bunches of kale to sell, although we do tend to eat them ourselves, of course.  Well, that's the problem with depending on home gardeners to buttress the community garden output.