In what has grown into a perennial debate, West Tisbury Farmers Market (WTFM) vendors are mulling the pros and cons of moving the outdoor market from the Grange Hall in West Tisbury, where it has been since its conception in 1974, to the Agricultural Hall off Panhandle Road. At a biannual meeting on Oct. 15, member vendors agreed that there was not enough information to make an informed vote, and tabled the matter.
The most recent push to move began about a year and a half ago, when some entrepreneurial vendors suggested that the Ag Hall would better suit the 41-year-old WTFM by providing more space for additional vendors and parking. The move is also seen as a way to alleviate traffic backups that occur on market days.
The market is the major draw, but vehicles entering and exiting the parking lots for Alley’s General Store, 7A Foods, Howes House, and the West Tisbury library add to the congestion. This summer, it was not unusual for vehicles to back up in both directions.
In spring 2014, an informal committee, headed by GOOD Farm owner Jefferson Munroe, began exploring the logistics and viability of a move. At last week’s meeting, vendors declined to vote on the change, and asked the committee to return with more information.
Opponents to the move cite visibility as a major concern. At the Grange Hall, the market is in plain sight to passersby. The Ag Hall has offered the market a space far back from the road, and merchants believe this will fail to attract those in the area who might not otherwise know that the market is in session.
“The Ag Society wants us in a very specific place,” market co-manager Rusty Gordon said in a phone conversation with The Times. “They want us way back in the back corner. A lot of people are unhappy about that, that we won’t be visible from the road. That’s a huge thing right now.”
He said the debate has been going on for years, and that this information-gathering committee is just the latest wave in the discussion.
“Some people think that it’s an eventuality, that we will move to the Ag Hall,” Mr. Gordon, owner of Ghost Island Farm, said. “Some people feel that we don’t need to keep growing, that we’re fine the way we are … I think a lot of new people coming into the market want to change, but not everyone does. It’s tough.”
Mr. Gordon said he would like to see a vote to close the debate, so that the market may continue “and be done with it.”
Mr. Munroe has led the most recent charge. He described himself as the informal chairman of the information-gathering committee.
“Everybody involved wants to make sure that if a move happens, it’s done correctly,” he said in a phone conversation with The Times. “There’s a question of how much information is actually necessary for that. I think the thought is that if we have a site design and we know what would happen in a variety of contingencies, such as the Ag Fair and some of the other events that happen at the Ag Hall traditionally, we would be able to know how those would impact traffic to the market.”
Mr. Munroe thinks that traffic is a much bigger issue than opponents have said, and that the backup is actually a deterrent to passersby who might otherwise wander in. He also thinks that the traffic is limiting business on summer weekends.
“The only way to get more people to the market in July and August is essentially to either come up with a way to get more people into the space in the time allotted or increase the time of the market,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of appetite for increasing the hours for the market, because it’s difficult for vendors and staff and that sort of thing.”
Mr. Munroe said that concerns over losing business because of the change are unfounded. He thinks customers are committed, and they would follow the market to a new location.
“If I was going to start a farmers market on Martha’s Vineyard, I would be concerned about that site [at the Ag Hall], because it’s not especially visible from the road. However, the market has thousands of people attend it every weekend … It’s hard for me to think that customers who show up and spend a lot of money every weekend wouldn’t know what happened to this thing that they spend two or three hours at,” he said.
Mr. Munroe is also a trustee of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society (MVAS), but said this has not influenced his opinion that the market should move. He said that he thought the WTFM could have been in a better location upon his first visit, prior to living on-Island. His initial reaction to the market, he said, was that it was in a very hot, cramped space.
West Tisbury selectman Richard Knabel said he doesn’t have a firm opinion one way or another about the issue. “I’m glad the question got asked,” he said.
Mr. Knabel said that traffic this summer was extraordinary, and that he’d “never seen anything like it.”
He added that the decision was entirely up to the WTFM and the Ag Hall, and that town officials would not have a say in whether or not to approve a move.