The Vale Avenue Farmers Market's decision to drop a twelve-year produce vendor to make room for newer stalls has drawn a wave of complaints from longtime shoppers, exposing tension between the market's growing waitlist of newer vendors and its loyalty to the sellers who built its reputation.
Gilbert Nakashima, who has sold produce from his family’s farm at the Vale Avenue Farmers Market for twelve seasons, learned last month that his stall would not be renewed, a decision market manager Ruth Alvarado said reflected a broader effort to rotate in newer vendors amid a waitlist now numbering in the dozens. Nakashima said he received the news by email with little explanation beyond a note thanking him for his years at the market. “Twelve years, and I found out over email,” Nakashima said. “I would have appreciated a phone call, at minimum.”
A petition and a public fight
Word of Nakashima’s removal spread quickly among regular shoppers, several of whom launched a petition demanding the market reverse its decision. The petition had collected more than 800 signatures within two weeks, a response Alvarado acknowledged caught the market’s small volunteer board off guard. “We’ve had vendors not get renewed before,” Alvarado said. “We’ve never had it turn into something people were circulating a petition over.”
Alvarado said the decision was based on a points system the market’s board uses to evaluate vendors annually, weighing factors including sales volume, product variety, and complaints. She said Nakashima’s stall had received several customer complaints in recent seasons about inconsistent hours and produce quality, though she declined to detail the complaints specifically, citing the market’s internal review process. “This wasn’t a snap decision,” she said. “It came out of two years of data the board reviews every winter.”
I’ve bought tomatoes from that man for twelve years. I don’t know what complaints they’re talking about. I know that every Saturday, he remembered what my mother liked before she passed, and he’d set some aside for me without me even asking. You can’t put that in a spreadsheet.
Carol Whitfield, longtime market shopper and petition organizer
Growth versus loyalty
Carol Whitfield, a longtime shopper who helped organize the petition, said she believes the market’s growing popularity, evidenced by a record applicant pool for new vendor stalls this season, has made the board too willing to treat longtime vendors as replaceable. “They’ve got sixty people applying for a dozen spots now,” Whitfield said. “I understand the temptation to just cycle people out for whoever’s newest and shiniest. I don’t think that’s what a neighborhood market is supposed to be about.”
Nakashima said he does not dispute that the market has changed, but said he felt blindsided given that he had never received formal warning that his stall was at risk before the non-renewal notice arrived. “If they’d told me two seasons ago that my hours were a problem, I would have fixed it,” he said. “Instead I found out my stall was gone the same day everyone else found out.”
Alvarado said the market’s board has since discussed adding a formal warning step to its vendor review process for future seasons, acknowledging the criticism has some merit even as she defended the underlying decision. “I don’t think we handled the notification well,” she said. “I do think the decision itself was fair, based on the same standards we apply to every vendor. Those two things can both be true.”
Theresa Nakamura, executive director of the Bellwater Chamber of Commerce, which does not directly oversee the market but has supported its growth through downtown promotional efforts, said the dispute reflects a tension familiar to any successful small-business ecosystem. “Success creates competition for space, and competition for space creates hard choices,” Nakamura said. “I don’t envy the market’s board having to make them in public, but that’s what happens once something becomes as popular as this market has.”
- A petition demanding Gilbert Nakashima’s reinstatement has collected more than 800 signatures.
- Market manager Ruth Alvarado said the decision followed a points-based annual vendor review process.
- The market’s board is now considering adding a formal warning step before non-renewal decisions in future seasons.
Nakashima said he has not decided whether to appeal the decision through the market’s board, which he said does have a limited appeals process, or simply move on and sell his produce through other channels, including direct sales to several Vale Avenue restaurants that have expressed interest. “Part of me wants to fight this,” he said. “Part of me is twelve years older than when I started and not sure I have the energy for a fight over a folding table.”
Whitfield said the petition’s organizers plan to attend the market board’s next public meeting regardless of what Nakashima decides, hoping to push for the notification changes Alvarado has floated even if his stall is not ultimately restored. “Maybe we can’t get him his spot back,” Whitfield said. “But we can make sure the next vendor this happens to gets treated better than he did.”
Alvarado said the board has agreed to hear a formal appeal from Nakashima if he chooses to file one before the season’s midpoint, though she cautioned that an appeal would not automatically result in reinstatement given how few open stalls the market currently has to offer. “I can’t promise an outcome,” she said. “I can promise a fair hearing, which is more than I think some people believe we’ve given this so far.”
Nakashima said the public support has been meaningful to him regardless of how the dispute is ultimately resolved. “Whatever happens with my stall, it means something that people noticed and said this mattered,” he said. “Twelve years, you start to wonder if anybody would notice if you just disappeared. Apparently they would.”