Merchants object to all day street closure plan
The Healdsburg Farmers’ Market, a success on Saturday mornings, has struggled to find the right formula for a second, midweek market. The Wednesday afternoon market struggled to attract customers and ended early last year, despite a sustained promotional effort.
At Monday night’s Healdsburg City Council meeting, a plan to move the market to the downtown Plaza met with mixed reviews from Plaza merchants.
Most merchants say they support the market and welcome it back downtown, but adding it to an already-busy Tuesday rankled merchants along Plaza Street.
“I might as well close my store,” on Tuesday, said Chris Bryant, owner of two clothing stores on Plaza Street. What concerned Bryant and others was a plan to close Plaza Street between Center Street and Healdsburg Avenue from 7 a.m. until late at night.
Under a plan conceived by the city’s Community Services Department and farmers’ market leaders, the street would close at 7 a.m. so that farmers could park and set up in anticipation of being open each Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. This would take place on the same days of the “Tuesdays in the Plaza” summer concerts, every Tuesday from May 29 through August 28.
Since the street is typically closed in the afternoon as well so that concert food vendors could set up, the city reasoned that it made sense to close it all day instead of reopening for an hour or two between the market and the concert set up.
Merchants are concerned that the market will block traffic, prevent deliveries and sell food and crafts in direct competition with them. Market manager Janet Ciel told the city council that staying open until lunchtime was crucial to the success of a Tuesday market, allowing food vendors to serve lunch.
Shane McAnelly, chef at the Brass Rabbit on Plaza Street, said despite the crowds of extra people downtown on Tuesday nights, business is slow on concert days.
“At least we had lunch,” said McAnelly, adding that a street closure and a food booth competing with him would “make it difficult to run our business.”
The market has come and gone from downtown and once took up as much as two blocks of parking stalls around the Plaza. When the Tuesday concerts began, they coexisted well with the market, but as the concerts got louder and busier, the farmers felt overshadowed and moved the market off the Plaza.
A notable conflict Monday night was the business owners’ feeling that they had not been notified of the plan. Dave Jahns, the facilities and events supervisor for the city, said he hand-delivered notices of a March 8 meeting to discuss the plan, but no merchants attended. The merchants — representing five businesses — who spoke Monday night were divided on whether they had received the notice.
The city council, tasked with supporting both the farmers’ market and the business community, did not approve the all-day street closure plan. The council asked the Community Services Department to meet with the merchants and the market and work something out that will support the market’s move downtown and satisfy the merchants’ concerns.
The item will be discussed again on Monday, April 23 at 5 p.m. The city council has a joint meeting with the Community Housing Committee and the street closure item will be added to the agenda.
Meanwhile, plans continue for the Saturday market, firmly established in the West Plaza parking lot off North Street. That market opens Saturday, May 5, at 8:30 a.m.
