Thornbury Farmers' Market (Photo provided by Ron Barnett)
The Thornbury Farmers’ Market is planning on making a delegation to the Town of the Blue Mountains over concerns about vendors being slapped with parking tickets.
Farmers’ Market Steering Committee member Ron Barnett says vendors at the market started to receive parking tickets from by bylaw officers a couple of weeks ago, after several years without enforcement.
“It seems obvious that this enforcement self-defeats economic development and flies in the face of permissions that have been granted to the farmers’ market for the use of municipal property every Sunday … May to October. After all, every vendor needs to park somewhere during the market and the park grounds cannot support vehicular traffic on the grass,” Barrnett says. “This should have been a consideration.”
He adds the market committee does not believe the original intent of the parking fees pilot by the municipality was to drive the farmers’ market out of business, but its enforcement is detrimental to the market’s survival.
He says some of the vendors have been talking of not returning. Some customers are also saying they’ll no longer attend the market due to the four-hour $10 parking fee.
When the market asked the municipality why its vendors were being targeted, Barnett says a Town of the Blue Mountains director explained the agreement between the township and the farmer’s market includes parking fees and appears as early as 2021 when the pilot was announced, which would charge for parking on municipal lots on weekends.
“It was never our assumption that vendors would be the target of bylaw enforcement,” says Barnett.
He says the farmers’ market would like to supply the municipality with a list of vendors for them to receive a parking pass.
“We would also like it if they didn’t charge customers because it’s a lot of money for somebody especially from out of town to come in and if they have to pay $10 just to park there, it kind of cuts back on business,” says Barnett.
The town’s communications manager did not want to comment on the issue before the delegation comes to council.
Barnett says they plan on making the delegation on June 19.