by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
Malcolm Sessions and Earl and Sandra Williams were made for each other.
The Williams’ set up a table every Friday at the Downtown Farmer’s Market on Hogan Street selling gift baskets full of perfumes, bath products, potpourri and fragrant candles. And Sessions, who works downtown, likes to buy gifts for his lady friends on the weekends. Ladies, in Sessions’ experience, “like to smell good.”
Such is the beautiful synergy that lies at the heart of the farmer’s market, the creation of Downtown Vision, Inc. (DVI) which brings together buyers and sellers to discover the kinds of homemade products you just can’t find at the local grocery store. The most popular items — the apple strudel, calzones, guava and cream cheese danishes and feta cheese and spinach pies that Maria Farra makes — are all the buzz.
“I incorporate a lot of European influences. What can I say, I mix,” said Ferra, a native Albanian who is quick to tell you that she is now an American citizen. At her bakery on St. Augustine Road in Mandarin, she has been making chicken salad and other deli items in addition to baked goods, for about 18 months. This summer, her granddaughter Eleni Haxhiu, who lives in Virginia, is helping at the market.
The gang that DVI has assembled so far is a mix itself, selling everything from apricots to sunflowers, basketballs to shampoo.
The Williams’, who have sold their gift baskets at the Pecan Park Road Flea Market and other busy neighborhood corners, said they got the idea for the farmer’s market when they saw an advertisement in the newspaper and called Amy Crockett, who handles field research for DVI. She also spends at least some of her time scouting other, similar farmer’s markets around the area to recruit new vendors.
While enjoying the music of the local band Cool Slynne at DVI’s other weekly event, Out to Lunch, an outdoor entertainment initiative held every Thursday and Friday in Hemming Plaza, Crockett said that in the last week she has been to the Union Street Market in Gainesville, the Old City Farmer’s Market at the St. Augustine Amphitheater and the At The Wednesday Morning Market in St. Augustine Beach to pass out business cards.
“I’ve even been on the phone with a market in Virginia Beach that is at about the same evolution as we are,” said Crockett. “Just to toss around ideas.”
DVI’s goal is to have 30 vendors, which would be a large increase from the current five.
St. Augustine is where Crockett found Ron and Julie Sharp, who run Sweet Scrubs, the body shop booth that sells the bath products that the couple make in their home in St. Augustine.
“We’ve been making soap in our kitchen for six years,” said Julie Sharp, “and we stay pretty busy.”
Marcus Mitchell and Ed Jenkins have run Moonlight Roses for five years. In addition to the farmer’s market, they have a booth on 103rd Street and on the corner of Timuquana Road and Roosevelt Boulevard in Ortega. When they are selling flowers on Hogan Street, though, their wives run the original booths.
“Sunflowers are the biggest sellers,” said Jenkins. “Now if you want roses, that’s $6 per dozen, unless you want them dressed up with babies breath. Then they’re $7 and up.”
DVI wants to expand the farmer’s market not only further down Hogan Street (two more blocks to Bay Street), but they also want to extend the season to year-round. August, however, may be too hot, some DVI leaders think.
But the heat wouldn’t deter one DVI downtown ambassador, Celeste Harrell, who also has an Italian Ice machine set up in Hemming Plaza next to the market.
“The hotter it is, the more ice I sell,” she said.
Jason Thiel, project manager for the Downtown Development Authority, which works with DVI to promote the farmer’s market, and therefore downtown, said that they are currently working to make the codes flexible enough to make the market as vibrant and eclectic as possible.
“Everyone will conform to the proper health codes, have their occupational licenses, and maintain a good appearance,” said Thiel. “As long as that’s happening we’ll do whatever we can to make it easy.”
Currently the market is operating under the auspices of the same laws originally meant to govern hot dog vendors. The most current legislation, passed in 1993, makes it legal for vendors to set up on the street as long as they have the appropriate licenses, including an occupational license that costs about $60 per year and an insurance fee that costs about $20.
Thiel said that DVI picks up the bill for the vendors at the farmer’s market.
“We are looking into working with City Council to restructure some of that legislation to make the farmer’s market as accessible as possible,” said Thiel. “If a vendor only sets up a booth in Jacksonville one day a week, then they shouldn’t be forced to pay the same fees as those who set up every day.”
But everyone seems to agree that the farmer’s market is not putting hot dog vendors out of business. If anything, it’s helping.
“Are we trying to compete with the lunch spots around Hemming Plaza? No,” said Terry Lorince, executive director of DVI. “We just want to do what lots of other cities do and enhance the options for what people can do at lunchtime.”
The booth that really puts the “farmer” in farmer’s market is the fruit and vegetable stand — the biggest of the booths — owned by Dale Collins, who has been selling fruit and vegetables on Beaver Street for 15 years.
There are over 30 items at the stand, which boasts the traditional big sellers such as grapes, cherries and tomatoes, and the exotic, such as bok choy and some Asian peppers.
Anthony Stevens, who is Collins’ grandson, who was working at the vegetable stand, said business was good.
“People like fresh stuff,” he said. “I don’t blame them.”