Not going down without a fight!!!

A Farmers Market ... what is it??

"Food market where local growers, farmers and artisan food producers sell their wares directly to consumers" ... sound's good? Sure!! If you're a consumer! But what about if you're a produce supplier only 100m down the road!!

That's what someone had decided they were doing here in Waihi Beach. A big part of our turnover is our well priced produce. As you can tell we were not happy when the organiser asked us to put a poster up in the window advertising the regular event in a couple of weeks. We asked if we were allowed a stall and was given a definate "No!".

My normal instinct no matter how upset I am about a situation is to just let it go. But Bill wasn't having a bar of it. Initially I tried to calm him down and just let be what will be. But soon realised he wasn't going to let it slide. If I couldn't beat him I had to join him.

Bill rang the council to get an investigation into our rights. We were told they would look into the matter. According to the man we spoke to he was under the impression that each stall holder needed to hold a hawkers license.

In the meantime we spoke to some of the other retailers who agreed with us in our concerns. It just seemed so unfair that we as retailers had withstood the hard toil of winter drought and when the people arrived someone decided they'd set up a market and take the harvest. We had to pay so many overheads just to survive ... lease, rates, power, wages... the list goes on. Along with the retailers was the owner of the Four Square supermarket across the road. Up until now we had a purely professional relationship with the Four Square, nothing more. But on realising they were feeling the same about the situation we set up a meeting with them. They contacted the Foodstuffs representative after Bill told him of the Otara New World going bust when the Otara Farmers Market started up.

On top of this ... they were going to ask for funding from the Community Board!! A community board that is funded by our rates!!! This added insult to injury!! They were planning to doing a presentation to the Board at 6.30pm tonight. Bill had planned a big speal to say along with alot of other retailers, who had signed a petition we set up.

At 3pm this afternoon Bill rang the council to find out their progress in the matter. According to the investigator at the council they had every right to have the market given that it's a commercial zone, but that the organisers were in the process of cancelling the event due to opposition.

So it's finally over ... it's not going ahead. I understand their thinking about having a market but I don't think they thought through the full extent that this could have on the town. While it may have brought people in, the majority of the money would be going elsewhere and it had the huge potential of shutting down retailers like ourselves and others in the town which has to be a bad thing. The less shops, the less products offered for sale, the less money going back into the community.

And the good thing with this???? (other than the fact that we don't have a big confrontation on our hands?) I didn't comfort eat!!! I stuck to points infact saving some points in the process.