The Charlottesville City Market is known as a place where customers can meet vendors, face-to-face, to buy fresh, locally grown produce and homemade goods. It’s trust-driven exchange that local foodies say is lost in the nation’s commercial food distribution system, and that, for many, is at the heart of the local food movement.
So, when the city changed its market rules earlier this year to say that all vendors had to comply with state and federal regulations, to include weights and measures and follow food safety laws, some farmers felt the market’s homegrown spirit was being violated.
 Richard Bean of Double H Farm in Nelson County, along with other farmers, opposed the rule that said the city would require vendors to comply with state food safety laws. “They say we have to have these rules to protect the customers,” he says. “What about the vendors?” |
John Coles and Christine Solem of Satyrfield Farm, known for the controversy over Coles’ unpasteurized goat cheese, raised the biggest fuss, saying that the rules could push out smaller farmers and that the city had no authority to claim it would enforce state law.
At least one other farmer felt the same way. Richard Bean, known for his well-established Double H farm in Nelson County, says, “[The city writes] the rules and then they don’t enforce them.”
Coles and Solem met with city officials May 10, and the rule was changed to say that vendors are responsible for compliance, but the city would not enforce state or federal laws.
City Councilor Kevin Lynch isn’t so sure the city should have backed down. “I think we’re putting ourselves at risk to do this. …If there is a problem and if it’s determined that they weren’t in compliance, I can’t imagine that we’re going to send our attorney’s bills to some farmers.” The city attorney could not be reached for comment on whether looser regulations would put the city at higher risk in lawsuits.
Bean says the city ought to focus less on rules and regs, and more on protecting vendors, including addressing the problem of resellers—”people selling products they didn’t produce or raise”—at the market.
Bean says, “I know of other vendors in Northern Virginia markets that quit because they can’t compete with [resellers].”
This, of course, also violates the spirit of the market. Bean says, “It’s between the customer and the vendor. …You trust me to sell the proper things and you look to me to provide the proper things to you.”
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