I did follow the changes with the market manager late last year when I was covering borough council meetings and also the million dollar renovations.
With those renovations and even before that, the market house is a nice structure. Plenty of history.
Again, let me preface this that this was my first visit in a while to the market and I only heard from the old word of mouth that things were going well and also that things weren’t going well.
Well, Friday when I was in there, there weren’t a lot of people – probably less than 10. Been told that Thursdays are better than Friday, so I will have to go on a Thursday to compare.
In case you are like me and haven’t been there in a while – there are two produce stands, a lunch meat stand, a couple of baked good places, a butcher and places to get lunch.
There was one entire area neat the back doors in the middle that had no stands.
I had a reason not to support the market, but I do have to wonder if business will pick up as the weather gets better or having a two-day market is not right for Columbia Borough.
And I also have to wonder what is being done to recruit stand holders for those empty spaces?
Columbia Borough through a series of grants just pumped some big time bucks into the facility so they must think it works.
Again, it might just be me going in on a Friday and not Thursday, or, it could be the time of the year and the weather.
Even with that, I’d be kind of concerned with what is going on or not going on down there.
2 comments:
Maybe the Borough should seriously consider going back to just one day a week. Thursdays would make the most sense since the York Eastern Market is open on Fridays. I undestand they tried to go to two days a week and were unsuccessful and went back to one day a week.
I know from attending the market meetings that the council (at least certain memebers) are ACTIVELY searching for and recruiting potential new stands. They have stated needs as bulk foods and spices, nuts, horseradish, or other specialty vendors, a turkey/poultry stand, and a seafood vendor. Maybe even a wine vendor (there are at least 2 in York's market and we used to have Moondancer Winery at our market). If anyone reading this knows of interested vendors, please direct them to the borough or to the www.columbiahistoricmarkethouse.com website. If anyone doubts the sincerity of their efforts, residents should have attended the March market meeting which lasted over 3 hours and included numerous debates and discussions over proposed changes and a great presentation by the market manager for Lancaster Central Market! Finally, we Columbians need to stop talking a good game and start patronizing our OWN market, as I am amazed at how many residents still do not shop at the market or even realize that we do have a market! As with most other issues in town, we are our own worst enemy.
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