Town officials on Tuesday approved a proposal to relocate the Farmers Market from its longtime home in the Center School Lot to a corner of the Lumberyard Lot at the train station. The Farmer’s Market is on track to launch May 8 and will run 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays through November.
It will operate in the southwest corner of the Lumberyard, following a 3-0 vote by the Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting.
“We think it’s going to be convenient to downtown, convenient for shoppers and guests,” Farmers Market volunteer Patricia Spugani said during the meeting, held via videoconference.
Some 30 vendors have already submitted applications to the New Canaan Health Department and the new space allows for expansion to accommodate additional vendors if needed, she said. “We are going to continue to require masks in the market and social distancing, along with that, no samples and no pets, which is consistent with any farmers market, with no pets,” she said. “One thing that is different, though, consistent with how we all behave in grocery stores, shoppers will be able to select their own produce. We think that food handling has been safe now, we know enough about the virus that people know to wash produce when they bring it home, and it will also keep things, traffic moving better in the market if the vendors do not have to do that for shoppers.”
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 to approve the new location for the Farmers Market.
According to a graphic that Spugani and Market Master Lexi Gazy presented at the meeting, motor vehicles will enter and exit the lot from Elm Street (opposite Karl Chevrolet), and there will be more than 100 on-site parking spaces for shoppers.
