Two new Vancouver Farmers Markets could draw community members together for fresh produce and other food next month.
A new Yaletown Farmers Market will run on Thursdays, from 2 to 6 p.m. from Aug. 15 to Sept. 26.
Vancouver Farmers Markets hopes to know by the end of the week whether a market at Mount Pleasant elementary can proceed. The pilot market is proposed to run Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. from Aug. 11 to Oct. 13 near Guelph Street and East Seventh Avenue. Neighbours have until July 31 to submit comments on the related development application.
"For the last four or five years weve been looking for something in that area," said Robert LaQuaglia, operations manager for Vancouver Farmers Markets.
LaQuaglia isnt intimately acquainted with the feedback the city has received but she says the market has the support of the school, its parent advisory council, the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Association and the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House.
Residents adjacent to new markets always wonder about noise levels and LaQuaglia said unloading and set up would begin until 8 a.m., limits are placed on the size and noise levels of generators, vendors with generators are positioned away from homes and live music isnt amplified.
Parking for vendors is proposed on the west side of St. George Street between Sixth and Eighth avenues.
LaQuaglia hopes shoppers will walk, cycle and bus along Broadway to the market. "Its a neighbourhood thats used to having people moving through it quite a lot with a church nearby, right near the Kingsgate Mall and through the transit corridor," LaQuaglia said.
The market is to include a maximum of 38 stalls, craft vendors and two food trucks. "Food trucks have really become an integral part of the market scene and the opportunity for people to have lunch on site has really meant that they stick around longer," LaQuaglia said.
Vancouver Farmers Markets is partnering with the Yaletown Business Improvement Association and VIVA Vancouver to run a pilot street market with produce, meat and seafood, baking and preserves. The Yaletown Farmers Market will run on Mainland Street between Davie and Helmcken at the Yaletown-Roundhouse Canada Line stop.
LaQuaglia hopes customer counts and sales will support these two markets to become annual affairs.
The Gastown Farmers Market trialled in 2009 failed because sales were low, as did another in North Vancouver.
Your Local Farmers Market Society started the first market in the parking lot of the Croatian Cultural Centre with seven vendors in 1995. Now it runs five markets, not including the pilot markets, a winter market and a holiday market and helps more than 225 vendors earn a more stable income.
"Its brought a better selection, a better level of awareness of whats available locally to the customers in Vancouver and I think it just pushes everyone forward to keep asking for local, keep supporting local and a better understanding of what local means for quality and taste and nutritional value and also just to our economy," LaQuaglia said.
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