Several hundred people converge each Saturday on the Hanalei farmers’ and craft-market on the grounds of the Hanalei Family Center. Indeed, the market’s popularity has prompted the center to ask that the craft-side of the market be curtailed. “It’s gotten
Several hundred people converge each Saturday on the Hanalei farmers’ and craft-market on the grounds of the Hanalei Family Center.
Indeed, the market’s popularity has prompted the center to ask that the craft-side of the market be curtailed.
“It’s gotten way too big for what we feel our facility can handle,” said Johanna Gomez, the center’s executive director.
Hundreds turn up each Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Many park in the nearby county soccer field, and the difficulties that ensue have center board members rethinking the craft side of the market.
They also say that the craft market tends to attract tourists and not necessarily the local community.
“We’d like to re-focus on the farmers’ market,” she said.
There are no plans to limit the farmers’ market, Gomez said, because it accentuates the center’s community-centered mission.
Gomez said that the board might be amenable to keeping the craft market if it were held separate from the farmers’ market.
“We would consider a different day or time,” she said.
Meanwhile, George Anderson, who started the market over four years ago, said he’s looking for another location for the whole market.
“At this point, I would like to find another location, if that’s the solution,” he said. “I’d be perfectly happy to move the whole market.”
Anderson said that he received a letter from the center that the craft side of the market would be terminated in a few weeks.
But Gomez said center board members, as a gesture of goodwill, will give Anderson more time, and are willing to talk.
Anderson figures the market is the second- or third-largest on the island, and that curtailing business would hurt the 20 or so crafts vendors who pay a nominal $8 fee to sell there.
“Some of these people on the craft side, without the exposure they’ve had at the market, wouldn’t have been able to start their businesses,” he said. “For some of them, it meets their needs for groceries. I’m real concerned for these people. Many of them need something like this.”
Of the 40 or so vendors in the market, about half are farmers, half crafts people. The customer split is about “fifty-fifty” visitor-local, he said.
“I’m really kinda surprised that some of the other markets don’t have something like this,” he said.
A Kapa‘a products fair is available for vendors, Anderson said, “but not at our price.”
Business Editor Phil Hayworth may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or mailto:phayworth@pulitzer.net.
