The Downtown Farmers Market is back in business but with several changes in operations designed to limit vendors and customers to potential exposure to the novel coronavirus.
For one vendor, that meant taking orders in advance from an established customer base.
“We can’t sell (flowers) by the stem anymore,” Martha White explained.
To avoid assembling flower bouquets at the market, which would result in people congregating around their booth, White and her husband, David Martin, instead made more than 50 bouquets in advance for Free Range Flowers. Most of the bouquets were spoken for by the time the market opened at 7 a.m. Saturday.
During the coronavirus outbreak, the market will be limited to mainly farm-sourced products. On Saturday that included vegetables, meat and eggs, handmade soaps, flowers and hand sanitizer. Vendors present were Kern Produce, Sunset View Foods, The Nolt Homestead, Free Range Flowers, Stella’s Soaps and Casey Jones Distillery.
Vendors that won’t qualify for the market during the period of restrictions include those who make craft items.
Market hours this year will be 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Community and Development Services, which oversees the market, outlined changes and safety measures in a letter to customers.
There won’t be any activities that encourage congregating. That includes tastings and children’s events.
Saturday morning, all of the vendors were wearing a face covering, and most of the customers were as well.
“We came out and planned a week ahead,” CDS employee Laura Faulkner said.
With a smaller number of vendors, the market was arranged so customers can walk directly to each booth rather than weaving through market pavilion from booth to booth.
Traditionally, farmers markets are places where customers socialize and spend time lingering at booths to touch produce and talk with vendors, and for many patrons that is part of the attraction to shopping in a community market. But for the time being, the Downtown Farmers Market will be a place where people are encouraged to shop and leave.
The market is under the pavilion in Founders Square at Ninth and Main streets.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
