Editor:
As long-time craft vendors at the Sechelt Farmers’ and Artisans’ Market, my wife and I have some observations on the complaints lodged by the downtown business association. Public and farmers’ markets are generally welcomed all over the world as drawing people to wherever they are. With their tents and stalls and hustle and bustle, they create a short-term, festive atmosphere that everyday retail establishments often cannot sustain. When passersby see a cluster of our tents, they often stop to see what’s happening. And, if the farmers’ markets and regular retail are close to one another, regular retail nearly always benefits from the atmosphere that is created.
More and more these days, shopping is entertainment, with people wanting more choices, variety and uniqueness. Sechelt farmers’ market provides the energy in five hours on Saturday that the sometimes rather sleepy downtown needs. We know from talking with our off-Coast visitors that there is a significant spillover effect. We engage with them, and suggest places to go and places to eat and places to shop. The relationship between our market and the downtown should be seen as symbiotic, rather than competitive.
On Saturdays, people make the farmers’ market a destination for the local things and food they may not find elsewhere; but they then go on to do the rest of their shopping downtown. We don’t sell oranges, but Claytons does. We don’t sell running shoes, but Trail Bay Source for Sports does. In all, it should be seen as a win-win situation, rather than a struggle for turf. When we visit a town, we always seek out a local market for the excitement and particular “sense of place,” and then go on to explore the rest of the town.
Kaye and Roberta Miller, Roberts Creek
