Decatur effectively has two farmers markets, and while some vendors are refusing to leave their temporary location at First Avenue and Grant Street, the Morgan County Decatur Farmers Market Committee is arguing the temporary location should be moved to a gravel parking lot behind the store on Bank Street.
The temporary location will be needed for the remainder of the growing season while construction continues on a new $2 million farmers market facility at Southeast 1st and 2nd Streets, scheduled to open next spring.
“I think everybody’s just looking for a solution to a temporary problem,” City Councilman Kyle Pike said.
City Councillor Carlton McMasters said he didn’t understand why the issue had gotten to this point, saying “I’m sure some kind of compromise can be found.”
Decatur’s official Morgan County Farmers Market is open for the first time, taking place Tuesday from 4-7pm in the parking lot behind 609 Social Market & Provisions. Two vendors showed up, but neither of them were selling produce.
The restaurant’s front entrance is on Bank Street, with rear parking between Walnut and Vine Streets. The rear parking lot is home to a Farmer’s Market.
However, the Bank Street Farmers Market closed Friday and won’t reopen until Saturday morning.
Council treasurer Katie Coates said the holiday week affected the market’s opening at 606 Social but she was confident more vendors would come in. She said she was confident new Farmers Market Manager Remy Neal would help promote the market.
“We’re making progress and we’ve gained vendors and customers,” Cote said. “As we promote and reach out to vendors who have been ripped off by other vendors in the past, I think we’ll start to see progress on a weekly basis.”
The board intends to maintain the 609 Market location because it has state licensing, insurance and city and state business licenses, Coates said.
“We have one farmers market in town, and it’s located at 609 Bank Street,” Coates said.
Meanwhile, there’s an alternative farmers market in the city’s Grant Street Southeast parking lot, which was originally a temporary farmers market but where some farmers refuse to leave.
The three farmers had a steady stream of customers on Wednesday and Friday until the rains started to fall.
“It’s going so fast we can’t keep up,” Marilyn Champion of Champion Farms in Falkville said Wednesday. “We have a staff of three and we don’t have time to keep the tables stocked.”
Customer Sonny Gortney said he’s done business with Champion Farms for years and plans to go with Champion wherever the company decides to set up.
Cliff and Renee Knight of Flint City Farm on Mill Road Southwest said they are happy with their choice to stay in their Grant Street lot.
“It’s been very busy,” Renee Knight said, “We’ve sold out almost every day.”
Customers Sonny and Sandra Miller, of Hartselle, regularly shop at the Decatur Farmers Market, but Wednesday was their first visit of the season.
Sonny Miller said he thinks the Grant Street parking lot is “a pretty good spot,” adding that he doesn’t know where 609 Social is located.
The dispute began this spring when a farmers market opened on the Grant Street lot after the permanent facility was demolished.
“It took a while for people to realize where we were,” Cliff Knight said.
Vendor Russell Harper told the city council that the car park at 609 Social is gravel, preventing many customers from shopping there.
“I have a lot of elderly customers in my store who use wheelchairs or walkers,” Harper said, adding that she is disabled.
Coates said 609 Social’s parking lot complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“We wouldn’t be able to open otherwise,” Cote said, “We have access from the street through the restaurant. There is a paved path from Bank Street to the rear parking lot.”
Coates said he would be speaking with vendors to address their concerns.
“There was no contact to have a productive conversation and no compromise was made,” she said.
Pike said he just wants all of the vendors to be successful.
“There are only a few months left in the season,” Pike said. “We’d love to have all the vendors back and have a nice new market. It’ll be better for them and their customers.”
Champion said the market committee did not advertise the temporary location on Grant St. Committee chair Laura Ricci said the committee did not have the advertising budget to promote the location.
So Michael LoCascio, chef and owner of 609 Social, offered an alternative: set up shop in his parking lot and incorporate the farmers market into advertising his restaurant.
The Farmers Market board accepted LoCascio’s offer.
The vendors, who include sellers of home-made products as well as farmers, complained that the committee had not listened to them and had no intention of listening to them in the future.
Champion said if the board listened to sellers, the market would be open on Wednesdays and Fridays in addition to Saturdays because those are the best days for sales.
The market committee set new opening hours for the Bank Street store as follows: Monday 7am to noon, Tuesday 4pm to 8pm, Friday and Saturday 7am to noon.
McMasters said he had recommended to council “to keep the Farmers Market Committee in place at its Grant Street location,” but found the council did not have the authority to do so.
“If farmers who started the season at First Avenue and Grant Street want to stay there, they should be able to,” McMasters said. “If some want to move to another location off Bank Street, they should be able to do so.”
Coates said he didn’t like the way the City Council responded at Monday’s meeting.
“We felt totally unsupported the other night,” Cote said. “Instead of saying, ‘We’ve heard your concerns, contact the board and see what we can do,’ we got responses and promises that were based on inaccurate information and poor information. Instead, they quickly caved in.”
Cote said this lack of support will cause problems in the future.
“Now, whether the board has spoken to (the disgruntled vendors) or not, they will be running back to the podium asking the council to intervene,” Coates said.
At the request of the City Council, City Attorney Herman Marks investigated the business’s request to remain at the Grant Street location.
Pike said there’s not much the city council or Morgan County commissioners can do about the Morgan County Farmers Market because it’s state-chartered. The commissioners and city council each appoint two directors and rotate a fifth director.
He said it is his understanding that neither the council nor the county commission can tell the farmers market committee what to do.
“A lot of people don’t know how the farmers market operates,” Pike said, “They don’t know that it’s not actually a city farmers market.”
Marks said farmers can stay in the Grant Street parking lot as long as they have a cultivation permit and a public use permit. The city requires a public use permit if they want to hold an event in a city parking lot, road or city-owned property. The state issues the cultivation permit to farmers.
“If you don’t have a cultivation license, you’ll need to get additional permits, such as a city or state business license,” Pike said.
The city does not run the farmers market, but Cote said he would like the city to take over and run it, with the manager on the city’s payroll.
“We want this theater to be treated like the Carnegie (Visual Arts Center) or the Princess (Theatre Center for the Performing Arts),” Cote said.
Carnegie and Princess are city-owned buildings operated by nonprofits. The city funds capital expenditures and allocates budgets to each nonprofit annually. The city has allocated $80,000 to Princess and $17,000 to Carnegie for fiscal year 2024.
“My request (from the city) has always been $10,000 because I’m confident that if we were to set up shop in a permanent location, we would bring in over $10,000 in sales tax downtown,” Coates said.
She said she knows the previous operators of the farmers market didn’t want the city involved, “but that was 1984. A lot has changed.”
Coates said the market committee continues to maintain its position that vendors who decide to stay in the Grant Street car park or go elsewhere will be welcome at the new farmers market when it opens next year.
“We continue to make moves that will benefit the farmers market in the long term for customers and vendors,” Cote said.
