Farmers’ Market Future Threatened

Over the last decade, farmers’ markets have been popping up in the neighborhoods in Los Angeles like wild mushrooms. Almost every day of the week, farmers travel in from coastal valleys to sell their produce on streets and parking lots all around L.A. Initially, the City had encouraged the enterprise, typically granting street closure permits, including a waiver of all fees through council motions. Now the city council has proposed a new ordinance that would eliminate council motions and charge all certified farmers’ markets that take place on L. A. City streets and parking lots a weekly permit fee for doing business, which could range from $250 to $1,000 a week. Markets operated by nonprofit organizations could apply for two waivers a year. ‘This policy has come about because special events [a designation which includes farmers’ markets] have spiraled out of control, and the City has found itself waiving everything,’ said Julie Pietroski, senior legislative deputy for Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski. ‘The budget situation has made councilmembers more aware of trimming costs. We shouldn’t be waiving fees if we can’t afford to put more police on the streets.’ While the motion is working its way through City Council subcommittees, farmers’ market operators, sustainable food advocates and neighborhood leaders are fighting to amend the ordinance to waive all weekly permit fees for the markets. Jennifer McColm, who oversees markets in the Palisades, Brentwood, Century City, Wilshire Center and Melrose, is looking at a weekly fee of $528 per market. ‘If the City imposes this $528 weekly fee, it will obviously shut down not just the Palisades but all farmers’ markets,’ she told the Palisadian-Post this week. ‘None of them can afford this kind of hit, which for me adds up to $27,000 a year for the Palisades alone.’ McColm, who opened the Palisades market in the fall of 2000, is working with the directors of the Hollywood, Culver City, Westwood, Westchester, Malibu and Venice markets to circulate a petition to stop the fee and keep the markets open. The motion, known as the L. A. City Special Events Ordinance, proposed last June, was recently debated by the budget and finance committee and the public works committee, and is scheduled for a hearing with the transportation committee. Pietroski said that the fee is based on city staff time, including marking the no-stopping zones, traffic devices and street cleaning. As the motion stands, there is no distinction between large and small markets, although ‘a number of council members are not feeling good about that,’ Pietroski said. ‘There might be the option of giving smaller markets a few years of waiver so that they can get on their feet and build more vendors. Cindy [Miscikowski] liked the tiered system.’ McColm said there are ‘approximately 50 vendors/farmers in both Brentwood and the Palisades. The cost to run a market varies, but for the most part the costs include insurance, salaries for the managers, a bookkeeper and the overseer, clean-up, workers’ comp, health and agriculture department fees, rent, portable toilet and liquid waste tank, and insurance. ‘The fee to participate in the markets varies. In the Palisades, farmers pay eight percent of total gross. Non-farmers pay 10 percent of total gross sales. Some people, especially farmers, use three or four spaces (10 ft.by 10 ft.) and still pay only eight percent.’ McColm operates markets for Raw Inspiration, a nonprofit organization established in 2002 that donates and installs organic and heirloom gardens in the schools surrounding their markets. Plans to install a garden at Palisades Elementary next week have been postponed pending the outcome of the motion. The transportation committee was scheduled to hear the motion as of press time Wednesday.