Old Town Temecula is host to a weekly Farmers Market. Evey Saturday morning till noon you can find fresh fruits and vegetables, breads, crafts, some clothing, flowers and plants and more. It's a small market, just fitting in the bus station parking lot. You can walk through the thing in 5 minutes unless you find something to look at. I've been there more than a few times and really like it. Unfortunately that's not the case for everyone.
The Old Town Merchants in Temecula have a different view of the Farmers Market. It's a very popular destination for many area residents. The Merchants don't like this and see the market as competition for customers and a distraction from the store merchants. Now personally I haven't seen any of the merchants selling produce, but to be fair some do sell crafts.
Last Saturday the market was issued a $50.00 citation. It seems the merchants feel the market is oozing from it's designated boundaries. Whenever I've been to the market the vendors are nestled tightly together within the parking lot confines. I've never seen them spilled out into the streets or setting up camp somewhere other than the allotted parking lot.
The market has been in continual operation since 2000 and will need to renew their permit by 12/31. The city council has suggested a 5 year extension, merchants are against this viewing the market as customer thieves, while supporters of the market seem to be on an e-mail campaign to save their Farmers Market
2 comments:
The farmers market agreement allows them to operate on the cities portion of parking lot. The bus parking lot is private property. Any portion of the market set up in this area is operating illegally, without a permit. This area does not qualify for a weekly permit by city ordinance. This is to protect Temecula from have swap meets and street vendor. So they are breaking the contract without spilling into the streets. Also the state agriculture code (law) states a farmers market must contain only agriculture items produced by the seller. Any deviation required the license to be a "certified farmers market" to be pulled. In addition by the city allowing other products in the FM against agriculture laws, this breaks the states "fair competition law". So, 2 state laws broken an 1 city ordinance. The Old Town Merchants view the certified farmers market as an asset. The issue is with the illegal operations taking place.
Thanks for the clarification to hows and whys of the situation. Hopefully a mutually amicable conclusion will result in the continuation of a very popular attraction in Old Town Temecula.
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