Raise the Hammer

If the only criteria is 'Home grow or Home made" there are going to be a lot of stalls selling only carrots, cabbage & root veggies during the Winter, + home made baked goods. Could you imagine if all Ontario Farmer's Markets operated like that! As someone mentioned, no salt water fish, also no nuts or nut products, & since all urban areas ban farm animals, no meat, no eggs, no dairy products, or deli items? Can rural Flamboro, Glanbrook, & maybe Stony Creek produce enough meats, deli, eggs, & dairy products to stock a market?

Think about the Ottawa, Kitchener, or St. Lawrence Markets. Where would they be without their ethnic foods, imports & clothing? Merchants travel from areas that are hours away from those markets. I guess they should be banned too? :(

This lady has clearly Earned her right to a stall because of the quality of her products, & her long history with H.F.M. Why can't the empanadas balance the coffee?

(I'm sure that Red Hill Coffee doesn't have a plantation on Hwy. 6. I completely agree with Julia Serna. This just sounds like more of the usual buddy system grabbyness that lives so comfortably at City Hall. We have had a lot of discussion on RTH about "Why Hamilton can't attract more business'" Need we have another instance of somebody being straight armed out of their place of business to make room for somebody on the Inside Track?! )

No fruit or veggy imports at all?? That's pretty silly, & it's just going to chase customers off to the supermarkets to get their organic mangos, bananas, soya products, nut products & dried fruit. (Why make 2 trips to get groceries, if you can get everything in one place? Making an extra trip to 'buy local' is a Nice idea, but how many have time to do that every week?)

Has anyone asked 'How Local is Local"? Is Cambridge local? What about Guelph? How about a Niagara wines stall? 6 Nations? Are they local enough?

If a product is grown somewhere else, but processed locally, is it still local? If local homemade brownies contain 20% cocoa from Ghana, sugar from Cuba, flour from the U.S., butter from Quebec, & walnuts from California, & cranberries from Bala are they still local?

If those brownies are deemed 'local', just because they are mixed & baked in Hamilton, I'd like to suggest that Julia Serna's case is Won, & she gets her stall back!!

OH Yes.. I spoke to a merchant at another market on the weekend who does Not live anywhere near the GHA. He attends several farmers markets across S. Ont. every week. He gets to keep his stall at HFM-?? WHY?? (if Local is the issue?)