Growing problem in Old Town

By: PHIL STRICKLAND - For The Californian | Monday, August 20, 2007 9:37 PM PDT ∞

Farmers markets are pretty cool. Especially if they're farmers markets.

Swap meets and craft fairs are, well, swap meets and craft fairs. No one confuses them with a farmers market.

It doesn't make them bad, just makes them not farmers markets.

There has been a disturbing commingling of the three that serves no one particularly well, so much so that it can be hard to find a decent selection of produce, much less relishes and canned and baked goods at some farmers markets.

Among the thriving farmers markets is one hosted by Temecula on Saturday mornings in a parking lot on the fringe of Old Town. It even can have some pretty good traditional fare.

And, its waiting list for a space overfloweth. Business, obviously, is good.

So good, in fact, that Gail and John Cunningham, owners of Farmers Market Management Co., have asked Temecula for $30,000 to cover one year's cost of expanding the market's area to include a two-block portion of Sixth Street.

Gail Cunningham is a De Luz organic farmer/vendor who for years has guided the market through an agreement with the city. Unclogging, she says, is her goal. It needs it.

She says there are no plans, at the moment, to add spaces to take pressure off the waiting list, which we are supposing has no local growers on it anyway because if there were they surely would be given preference over nonlocal, nonagricultural vendors. It being a farmers market and all.

Cunningham says her plan is to add tables and chairs, perhaps even live music.

Please, no petting zoo.

Her business neighbors in Old Town are livid.

A true farmers market is not a threat to business in Old Town. If you had to survive on the fresh vegetables and fruit you can buy for the week in Old Town, you probably couldn't.

The supply of stuff and cooked-on-the-spot eats, on the other hand, appears unthreatened and that's where Old Town merchants are seeing red. They are incredulous that the city is considering giving the market, which they see as a competitor for retail dollars, $30,000 to enlarge its operation.

It's hard to ignore the swap meet/craft fair comparison. Even the occasional visitor can tell you that the market's population of farmers is overshadowed by retailers.

What Old Town merchants see is their city government considering spending our money to the benefit of out-of-town transient, retail competitors.

Winnowing out agricultural-related vendors would resolve the crowding nicely, but that would be a disservice and dangerous.

A disservice because there can be some neat stuff for sale and dangerous because it works and is a valuable draw.

There are solutions. For example, you could allow the space request with the proviso that only agriculture-related vendors are allowed on city streets.

Rather than cut off the vendors, the retailers and food vendors, unless bumped by a local grower, would retain their space at the north end of Old Town.

The growers even could be given an additional day or evening to set up where possible in Old Town. Wise merchants and farmers will find symbiotic relationships that work for them, the city and the visitor.

Imagine what a nice evening stroll that could be.

-- Phil Strickland is a Temecula resident and a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail: philipestrickland@yahoo.com.