Just Fined

It does not matter what market I have attended over the years, somewhere along the line there is always going to be contention over parking. Between residents, business owners, and municipalities complaining about their inconvenience or loss of revenue, I have dealt with all of it.

Back in the 80s when I helped start a small market in a tourist town, all we wanted were six parking spaces in the city’s public lot on a Sunday morning for three hours so the local restaurants who patronized local growers had a common pickup point for our weekly orders. Most of the neighboring businesses did not open until after the close of the quasi-market, yet both the parking authority and the business owners were upset at us taking their precious parking. For nearly a year I wrote a weekly check to the town for the full cost of renting those six spaces for an entire day, despite our use of only a fraction of the day. The vendors would split the cost among themselves, and that was the extent of the market fees. When a market structure was solidified and we wanted to expand, the town still made us pay for all of the parking spots for the whole day. It’s nice to see that those six vendors are still at that market, which has expanded to consume almost the entire parking lot with 40 local producers and becoming a focal point of the community. But when I touch base with old friends, I find out that local parking continues to be an ongoing issue as shoppers block driveways, park in private lots, and aggressively circle the block searching for a closer spot being relinquished.

Every single market in which I have participated over the last 25 years has some issue over parking. Usually, it is the vendors who must work around illegally parked vehicles left on the streets or in the lots where the market is to take place. The markets in the District have an easier time getting cars towed, but for markets that take place on county properties such as the elementary school, the logistic hurdles and indifference of law-enforcement make vehicle removal practically impossible. Plus, what tow truck driver is going to want to maneuver through a busy venue setting up tables and tents. For those special folks, we have stickers with extremely strong adhesive warning the driver never to park there again. It is this situation that causes the most apprehension for me. I have witnessed illegally parked car owners attempt to drive through a busy market in order to exit while the market manager clung to the hood of the car screaming for them to stop. I am grateful that the folks running our markets are smarter than that.

There is also an added safety issue of when a vehicle does get towed, the owner becoming irate to the point they are dangerous. I once had a cab towed out of my spot at an inner-city market. My mistake was trying to contact the cab driver using the telephone number on the side of his car to get him to move his vehicle before the tow truck driver arrived. For days after the incident, he called, leaving abusive voice messages, including ones where he threatened to burn down my farm.

Other farmers take things into their hands in a unique way. When a fancy little sports car blocked the fruit vendor’s spot at another market in the height of the season, all of the strapping men of the market got together and picked up the car, sitting it in the grassy median between the two streets where the market was held. The parting shot was we all hoped he ripped off his oil pan getting out of there.

My favorite one that has showed up in the news. Lately was a farmer in the UK tired of people parking in his fields decided to spread manure. The pictures were awesome, but at the same time made me grateful for American property rights.

Regularly I have customers admit to double parking, parking in a handicap spot, and illegally parking on the street where there are obvious NO PARKING signs. It’s only for a few minutes, they always say. But for the last few weeks, those few minutes may have ended up costing them $60 as mounting complaints about illegal parking in the Bethesda neighborhood on Sunday have prompted local law enforcement to lay in wait for any offenders. OK, so you might see a vendor temporarily parked in a no parking zone to quickly offload, their engine usually still running. But that doesn’t give patrons permission to park even though they are only going to be a few minutes. I know how a few minutes turns into several and then morphs into something a little longer when you run into your neighbors and chat for a while.

At all of the Central Farm Markets, there is ample access to free parking. While some of it may involve walking more than a dozen or so steps to enter the market, it is easily accessible. If you are like me and many others who do the majority of their shopping at the market, consider investing in a collapsible shopping cart or wagon to tote everything. If that is too much to ask, all of our markets have an information tent where patrons may leave their purchases while they retrieve their vehicles. It’s as simple as driving up to the information tent and allowing our employees to load your groceries into your vehicle.

I could talk about this and write about this until my face was the color of a blueberry. But these frustrations have been going on at every market anywhere in the country for decades now. How hard is it to read the signs? To read your weekly market eBlast that tells you where all the parking is located and then specifically asks you not to park in certain areas? And the irony in all of this for me is my three customers who complained about getting tickets in recent weeks are all attorneys. Go figure.