Hollister
– Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe people are on vacation. Or maybe
people decide not to go to the Hollister Downtown Association’s
farmers’ market for personal reasons.
Hollister – Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe people are on vacation. Or maybe people decide not to go to the Hollister Downtown Association’s farmers’ market for personal reasons.
Regardless of the reason, however, it’s been slow enough this year to worry organizers and vendors.
“I don’t think it has ever been this slow,” said Bonnie Swank of Swank Farms. “Each week it goes down a little more. (It’s) way down.” Swank also sits on the HDA Farmers’ Market Committee.
With only a month left until the market will close for another year, organizers are getting creative: A steel drummer was filling the air with a tropical pulse on Wednesday and the Hollister Downtown Association is giving away farmers’ market money – think colorless Monopoly money, but bigger – in a raffle. There’s a catch, though: You have to buy something.
“We need to get give people a reason to come down,” said Paul Hain, a farmer and member of the Farmers’ Market Committee.
The market runs from 3-7pm Wednesdays, May through August, on the corner of Fourth and San Benito streets in downtown Hollister.
No one really knows why the little consortium of meat, fruit and vegetable vendors has slumped since Fourth of July.
“It seems slower,” said Pattie Sparling, a worker with Swank Farms, as she heaved boxes of goods from truck to table. “But you don’t know until you see the numbers.”
Not all the vendors are making fewer sales, though. Nearby, Miguel Navarro of McClellan Botanicals was setting up a small flower stand, same as any Wednesday.
“For me it’s been pretty normal,” he said. “Almost the same as last year.”
It’s hard to miss the smoke rising from Mansmith’s Barbecue out of San Juan Bautista, which sets up shop on the corner. And it’s hard for meat lovers to pass up the tri-tip briskets and ribs, said Colleen Blanton, as she carried a tub of barbecue sauce.
“We have our regulars who come on Wednesday and Friday,” she said, referring to Mansmith’s Friday night barbecue.
Karen Zanella shows up to the market once a month. She said she always has the same shopping list:
“Green beans, apricots and an orchid,” the Hollister resident said, as she filled a plastic bag.
Once-a-month patrons won’t be enough for the market to survive, though, Swank said.
“I know people would like the farmer’s market, but they need to come down and support it or else we won’t be able to afford to do it,” she said. “It’s just not cost effective.”
Banks Albach covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 335, or [email protected].
